Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/510

 488 ITALY [HISTORY. recognize the part played by each of these great men in the liberation of their country, and while we willingly ignore their differences and disputes, it is Cavourwhom we must honour with the title of the Maker of United Italy. Consti- From this digression, which was necessary in order to tutional make the next acts in the drama clear, we now return to reforms. j] ie y ear } 4g m Misrule had reached its climax in Rome, and the people were well-nigh maddened, when Gregory XVI. died, and Pius IX. was elected in his stead. It seemed as though an age of gold had dawned ; for the greatest of all miracles had happened. The new pope declared himself a liberal, proclaimed a general amnesty to political offenders, and in due course granted a national guard, and began to form a constitution. The Neo-Guelfic school of Gioberti believed that their master s Utopia was about to be realized. Italy went wild with joy and demonstrations. The pope s example proved contagious. Constitutions were granted in Tuscany, Piedmont, and Rome in 1847. The duke of Lucca fled, and his domain was joined to Tuscany. Only Austria and Naples declared that their states needed no reforms. On the 2d of January 1848 a liberal demon stration at Milan served the Austrians for pretext to massacre defenceless persons in the streets. These Milanese victims were hailed as martyrs all over Italy, and funeral ceremonies, partaking of the same patriotic character as the rejoicings of the previous year, kept up the popular agitation. On the 12th of January Palermo rose against King Ferdinand II., send Naples followed her example on the 27th. The king was forced in February to grant the constitution of 1812, to which his subjects were so ardently attached. Revolu- While Italy was thus engaged in making terms with her tion of own sovereigns, the French revolution broke out. Louis 1848. Philippe fled to England, and the republic was declared. This altered affairs in Italy, and threw a temporary power into the hands of the Mazzinisti. Sicily pronounced her self independent of the Bourbons, and called the duke of Genoa to the throne. In Naples, the moderate liberal government, of which Poerio had been a member, yielded to a more radical administration. The patriots and the king s troops came to blows, ending in Ferdinand s victory and the remodelling of the constitution. Lombardy rose in insurrection. The Austrians were expelled from Milan, and the governor of Venice capitulated. Provisional re publican governments were formed, at Milan under the presidency of Casati, at Venice under that of Daniele Mauin. Impelled by the overwhelming enthusiasm which prevailed in Upper Italy, Carlo Alberto declared war on Austria in March. On the 8th of April he pushed his troops beyond the Mincio ; while Piacenza, Parma, Modena, and the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom voted their union to Sardinia by universal suffrage. But the Austrian general, Radetzky, though he lost a battle at Goito, and was forced to witness the capitulation of Peschiera in May, Lad not given up the game. The pope s troops were es tablished at Vicenza to support the Sardinians. These Radstzky compelled to surrender in June ; he then attacked Carlo Alberto s army, who were engaged in the investment of Mantua. A complete victory upon the 25th of July at Custozza enabled Radetzky to re-enter Milan. Carlo Alberto had to retire beyond the Ticino and to bsg for an armistice. News of this Austrian victory reached Naples, and gave Ferdinand the heart to quell the Sicilian revolt. On the 30th August Messina was bombarded, and such atrocities were perpetrated in the miserable city that the admirals of the French and English fleets had to inter fere and extort an armistice from the conquerors. In the meanwhile, affairs had begun to change in Rome. The pope, frightened at the revolution which had already out- vun his control, pronounced against the Austrian war and Italian alliance. This roused republican hostility. His minister, the excellent Count Pellegrini Rossi, was mur dered in November, and anarchy seemed to threaten the city. Pius escaped in disguise to Gaeta, where he was re ceived by Ferdinand, whom not long since he had de nounced as a rogue. From Gaeta he opened the new year, 1849, with a threat of excommunication to his subjects. The Romans were so irritated that the moderate liberal party had to yield to the ultra-radicals ; and on the 9th of February Rome was declared a republic. The government was entrusted to three dictators, of whom Mazzini was the head. Tuscany, meanwhile, had lost her grand-duke. After opening parliament in January with a declaration that he intended to prosecute the war against Austria, he escaped in February on the English war-steamer &quot;Bulldog&quot; to Gaeta. A provisional government was established in Florence, and Mazzini did his best to render Tuscany a part of the new Roman republic. At this epoch two im portant personages appeared upon the scene Gino Capponi, who led the moderate liberals, and Urbano Rattazzi, who headed the democratic party. The Florentines were not at bottom out of sympathy with their duke. Therefore they rejected Mazzini s overtures, and recalled Leopold upon the understanding that he would respect their free institutions. Still at Gaeta, the grand-duke mistrusted these advances, begged for Austrian troops, and, when they had arrived, re- entered Tuscany and suppressed the constitution. Such acts of perfidy as these, repeatedly committed by all the petty sovereigns of Italy with the exception of the house of Savoy, forced the people to abandon the theory of federa tion under existing governments, and to look for their salvation to Piedmont. This growing confidence in the Sardinian monarchy was Sa not shaken by the disastrous campaign of March 1849, ca which baptized the cause of Italian independence with the j^ 1 best blood of Piedmont, gave it a royal martyr, and pledged i ie the dynasty of Savoy to a progressive policy from which it mi never afterwards for a single moment deviated. Pushed by the ultra-radicals, and burning with the purest zeal to liberate Italy, Carlo Alberto took the field again in March 1849 against the Austriaus. On the 24th, after some pre liminary movements, proving a want of good generalship and discipline in the Piedmontese army, Radetzky obtained a complete victory at Novara. The king of Sardinia abdi cated on the field, in favour of his son, the duke of Savoy, Vittorio Emmanuele II. Carlo Alberto, who had lived through times so troublous and perplexing, who had ex posed himself to misunderstanding and misinterpretation, but in whom the devotion to Italy had become a religion, now took refuge at Oporto, where he died, broken-hearted, after a few months of illness. The pathos of this death checked the snarling of discordant parties ; and, when the king s body was brought home to be buried on the heights of the Superga, the heart of Italy recognized his worth. Carlo Alberto, though still anathematized by the republican faction, became the saint of Italy. Hundreds of pilgrims flocked to his tomb. The loyalty of his subjects redoubled^ and it was felt that, by serving Italy, they would glorify his memory. More than ever, by the disasters of Novara, were the dynasty and aristocracy and people of Sardinia pledged to that national policy which Carlo Alberto s son triumphantly accomplished. In the cottage homes of Pied mont and Lombardy travellers may still behold the old king s agony depicted side by side with the portraits of Cavour and Garibaldi and Vittorio Emmanuele. The intrigues of which Gaeta had been a centre provoked a crusade of the Catholic powers against republican and anti-papal Rome. A French expedition, under General Oudinot, landed at Civita Vecchia on the 25th of April, and on the 29th reached the walls of the city. The Neapolitan