RETURN OF A CARBONARO: ITALY, 1859
“Our cause is good, our army is excellent … and he
[Louis Napoléon] is as pleased about it as I am.” 1
—EMPRESS EUGÉNIE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR OF ITALIAN INDEPENDENCE, MAY 1859
“I can remember no period of equal confusion and danger.” 2
—PRINCE ALBERT, 1859
Italy had not been united since the fall of the Roman Empire until its conquest and foreign occupation by Napoléon Bonaparte and the French. With the collapse of the First Empire, 1814–1815, and the blessing of the Congress of Vienna, the Habsburgs and their Austrian army had been given free reign in the conquest and occupation of northern Italy, from Milan in Lombardy to Venice and the Adriatic … and ever since “the Italians” had been demanding independence. As for Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, apart from regaining his place in France, he had dreamed of little else except personally liberating the unhappy Italian peninsula from the Austrian yoke. “The dearest dream of my life, the strongest desire of my heart,” he declared, “is the independence of Italy.”3 An enormous political volcano long overdue to erupt, it was now merely a question of when.4 And the French emperor was paying the price for the amount of pressure building up all around him. Ambassador Lord Cowley reported to London finding him a chain-smoker, “cast down … very much out of humour,” physically run-down, and unusually nervous.5 The Italian situation had to be resolved once and for all.
* * *
“I can remember no period of equal confusion and danger [in the world],” a much troubled Prince Albert confessed in 1858. Modern technology, in his case, “the new electric telegraph,” he pointed out, had brought news of disasters and threats of disaster “from all quarters of the globe”—China, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. “Suspicion, hatred, pride, cunning, intrigue, covetousness, dissimulation, dictates and despatches” have been raining down upon us, he complained to Baron Stockmar, turning the world topsy-turvy, “and in this state of things we cast about to find a basis on which peace may be secured.”6 This world of suspicion, intrigue, and dissimulation was affecting and altering his own outlook, turning him, almost abruptly, against this same very new friend, Louis Napoléon (and his France), who had so delighted him back in 1855. These negative views he now shared with his Coburg cousins, including Uncle Leopold, the king of Belgium, and the Prussian royal house itself, through his new son-in-law, prince and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Friedrich.
As for Queen Victoria, she soon found herself uncomfortably in the middle, unexpectedly having to make excuses for this emerging anti-French attitude, which she personally did not share and resisted as best she could. And Louis Napoléon, himself no stranger to paranoia and suspicion, soon felt this unanticipated swelling “German animosity” as he became more actively involved in the fate of Italy. “Two Germanies [separated and unallied] I could not mind,” he confided to the fifty-seven-year-old Hungarian exile Lajos Kossuth, “but one [big] Germany,” for example, the various combined German states, perhaps allied with Austria—“that I find quite unacceptable.”7
* * *
For Louis Napoléon, the countdown to conflict and war in Italy moved with the inexorable force of historical predestination, as his European neighbors were beginning to realize. Aware of this growing anxiety, Louis Napoléon’s aim was not necessarily to enroll new allies or to disturb the European peace, but rather to avoid interference in future actions by ensuring the neutrality of neighbors, beginning with England.
In a fence-mending gesture, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sailed to Cherbourg on August 5, 1858, nominally to celebrate the opening of the new facilities of this port (left uncompleted by Napoléon I), where Louis Napoléon naïvely insisted on unveiling the first of his new steam-powered, armor-plated naval vessels. If on this occasion Victoria displayed an anxious smile, an arrogant Albert, in the best Coburg manner, did little to conceal his new distrust of the French emperor. The show of new military might at this moment of “diplomatic reconciliation” was not fortuitous. Later in December, in her annual New Year’s speech for 1859, the English queen spoke of her hope for the continuation of the two governments “cherishing their cordial understanding” and ensuring European “happiness and prosperity.” Louis Napoléon in turn assured her that his personal efforts would always be directed “in maintaining a sincere alliance” between France and England. Moreover, the presence of Victoria and Albert at Cherbourg, he closed, “had put an end to those absurd rumors about our strong political differences.” Despite the very real sincerity on both sides, all the old cordiality, warmth, trust, and confidence of 1855 had been replaced with stiff, cautious phraseology, tinged with anxiety.8
“I regret that relations between our two governments are not more satisfactory,” Napoléon III told Austrian ambassador Hübner at his annual New Year’s Day reception January 1, 1859, for the diplomatic corps at the Tuileries, while from his throne in Turin, King Victor Emmanuel lamented that he could hardly “ignore the cry of pain” of the peoples of Italy.9 Reflecting this unease, shares at the Paris Bourse plunged, notably those concerned with new Rothschild and Pereire railway construction projects in Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Events went ahead of course, and on January 29, 1859, a secret Franco-Sardinian military pact was duly signed, fulfilling the earlier Plombières accord. Four days later Prince Jérôme and Princess Clotilde of Sardinia were married.
And then for good measure, on February 4, 1859, the none-too-subtle Louis Napoléon sounded the clarion, adding to the momentum toward war by publishing M. de La Guéronnière’s booklet entitled Emperor Napoléon III and Italy, further fanning alarm across Europe. “I have always had the intention of creating a free, independent Italian nation,” Louis Napoléon had declared back in 1854, which was now repeated. This publication also declared the necessity of seeing the Vatican reduce and reform its secular Papal States as part of a new, larger, federated Italian state. The Austrians too were in need of reforming the medieval administration of their empire, this tract suggested.
While there was no mention of the creation of a large, completely unified Italy, it did call for a loose Italian confederation under the presidency of the pope. And this was the form Louis Napoléon hoped it would take. Regardless of the ultimate political form adopted, it was clear that unless the Austrians renounced their claims to Italy and withdrew permanently, war seemed inevitable.10 Given the present political tension, Louis Napoléon’s forthcoming annual throne speech on the seventh of February announcing the opening of Parliament was now awaited with great anxiety by everyone, since he was expected to declare himself at long last.
The policy of his Second Empire, Louis Napoléon that day affirmed, was “to reassure European stability while returning France to her proper role as a leader in the affairs of the world.” Nor did he dodge the nagging question of the hour. “For some time now the abnormal state in which Italy finds herself—and where order has been maintained only with the assistance of foreign troops, has been troubling the diplomatic world.” In attempting to resolve these conflicting issues, “I regret to say that we have found ourselves on a collision course with the Government of Vienna.” Whether talking about the consequences of the Crimean conflict and the Danubian provinces, or Italy, France was rightly concerned and involved, for “the interests of France are to be found wherever the cause of justice and civilization are to be upheld.… Therefore, it is hardly startling that France should draw closer to Piedmont [Sardinia], this country that stood by us as faithful allies earlier in the Crimea,” a position strengthened by the recent marriage of “our beloved cousin, Prince Jérôme, with the daughter of the King Victor Emmanuel.” Under the circumstances, then, he felt that “the Italian situation” had to be resolved. “But my Government will neither be pushed to act or be intimidated to withdraw [from this dispute. Nevertheless] “peace, I hope, will not be disturbed,”11 and he suggested a solution: the convening of an international congress in Paris to resolve the Italian problem. Austria immediately rejected the idea.12 The lines were drawn.
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In mid-April 1859, Victor Emmanuel started mobilizing the Sardinian army. On the twenty-third of April, Vienna issued an ultimatum, ordering Turin to disarm and disband the Sardinian army. Cavour returned a defiant public refusal. On the twenty-ninth of April, an Austrian army ultimately totaling 250,000 men under Field Marshal Stadion emerged from the Tyrol and crossed the small Ticino River below Lake Maggiore, “entering Sardinian territory.” The next day the French Parliament easily voted the war credits Louis Napoléon would need for the forthcoming campaign. On the third of May, Louis Napoléon issued a proclamation denouncing Austria. “May the responsibility [for this aggression] rest upon those who were the first to arm,” he declared a few days later as French troops under Generals Canrobert and Baraguey d’Hilliers entrained for Italy. But instead of the 200,000 French troops promised at Plombières, initially only 104,000 were ready at the start of the campaign, nor was logistical support any better prepared. Nothing had been learned since the disastrously managed “victory” in the Crimea, nor from the decades of fighting in Algeria. Fortunately, Sardinia, a kingdom of only five million, was able to field another 60,000. “Our cause is good,” the patriotic Empress Eugénie boasted in Paris, “our army is excellent, and he [Louis Napoléon] … he is as happy as I am about it.”13
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“The object of this war … is to restore Italy to the Italians,” which in turn will assure France of having on her frontiers “a friendly people, owing their independence to us,” Louis Napoléon proclaimed. And therefore “I am about to place myself at the head of our army.… Courage, then and Forward!… Ours is a holy cause.”14 Commander in chief Louis Napoléon and the advance divisions of his army duly debarked at Genoa on May 12, 1859, although Émile Fleury, a court insider, for one, openly voiced his reservations about the emperor’s ability to command. Napoléon III was in overall strategic command of five corps, led by Sebastopol veterans Achille Baraguey d’Hilliers, Patrice de MacMahon, François Certain Canrobert, Adolphe Niel, and in theory, Prince Jérôme, “Sans-Plomb,” while Auguste Regnault de Saint-Jean d’Angély directed the Imperial Guard. The Austrian army, initially under the command of Field Marshal Stadion, was directed in the field by Field Marshal Ferenc Gyulay, whose artillery outgunned the combined Franco-Sardinian force by nearly three to one.
With the names of Uncle Napoléon’s celebrated victories in Italy inspiring him—Arcola, Lodi, Marengo, and Rivoli—Louis Napoléon was determined to sweep the Austrians back across the frontier. The first battle against Gyulay at Montebello, on the twentieth of May, proved sluggish and indecisive, however. On the fourth of June, the French army under General MacMahon next clashed with the Austrians at the bridge before Magenta, which was only won by the French thanks to the arrival of last-minute reinforcements. After burying General Espinasse on the field of battle, Louis Napoléon rewarded MacMahon with the marshal’s baton and the title of Duke of Magenta, an act the emperor would later live to regret.
Lombardy was won, and on the eighth of June Louis Napoléon and the victorious French army made their triumphant entry into Milan. “I have been welcomed as their liberator!”15 he wrote excitedly to Eugénie. Meanwhile, Baraguey d’Hilliers was successfully pushing back the Austrians over the Chiese. On the twenty-fourth of June, General Adolphe Niel launched an early-morning attack at Solferino, as Louis Napoléon awaited the results nearby at Castiglione delle Stiviere. For once the fighting was really fierce on both sides, the battle only decided in favor of the French several hours later as the bloodied Austrians withdrew to the northeast across the Mincio. Inspired by the French, the people of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Papal States joined in the rebellion against the startled “elite” Austrian army. But once again cholera and dysentery took a heavy toll on both sides.
Even as Louis Napoléon was pressing on to Venice, however, word reached him from Berlin of the mobilization of an army of 200,000 Prussians that could reach France in fifteen days’ time. With the threat of their advance on the Rhine, a cautious Louis Napoléon ordered an abrupt halt to his pursuit, over the objections of the Sardinian commander. With only five French divisions, perhaps fewer than 50,000 men, available around Strasbourg, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV could easily invade and occupy French Alsace. Another nagging anxiety was Prince Jérôme’s personal proposal to save the world by raising a new, separate army of 300,000 troops and attacking the Prussians.16 If the Prussians then joined forces with Emperor Franz Josef’s Austrian armies …
Regardless of the rumors and scaremongering, there was just enough reality behind the Prussian threat to cause Louis Napoléon to stop his advance. He had to return to Paris as quickly as possible. The fear of revolution spread by Mazzini’s agents, combined with growing international distrust, was beginning to unsettle the whole of Europe. Having swept most of northern Italy free of the occupation force, a wary Louis Napoléon called for a premature truce, which a much embarrassed Austrian monarch readily accepted, and on the tenth of July the two sovereign heads of state met just south of Verona at Villafranca.
One hour later, hostilities were suspended by an armistice valid until mid-August, and general terms of a peace treaty were agreed upon. Refusing to negotiate directly with Sardinia, Austria renounced its occupation of Lombardy, whose territories and cities would be handed over to Louis Napoléon, who would in turn then hand them over to Victor Emmanuel. Franz Josef, now faced with unexpected defeat in Italy and the very real threat of revolution in Hungary—in the very heart of his empire—rapidly agreed to the creation of a new Italian Confederation under the presidency of the pope. The fortresses of Mantua and Legnano along with Venice were, however, to remain in Austrian hands.
Angered and humiliated by Austria’s refusal to negotiate face-to-face with him, Victor Emmanuel felt let down by Louis Napoléon, who had reluctantly acquiesced to this procedure, including Vienna’s retention of Venice. Equally outraged by what he saw as a French betrayal, Cavour resigned from office in a huff. Despite rumors to the contrary, there was still no discussion or mention of a unified Italy. Moreover, as Louis Napoléon had failed to capture Venice as promised earlier, Victor Emmanuel provisionally renounced the promised rewards of Savoy and Nice.
Rushing back to St. Cloud on the nineteenth of July, a victorious Napoléon III addressed the nation: “To help achieve Italian independence I went to war in defiance of hostile European public opinion, but later when finding my own country, France herself, imperiled [by the threat of a Prussian invasion], I concluded [an early] peace with the Austrians.” “My one persistent great and disinterested objective,” he told Austrian ambassador Hübner, “has always been to … see Italy freed and returned to her own people,” and that he had largely achieved.17 His boyhood dream had been fulfilled, and on the fourteenth of August, Louis Napoléon, the conquering hero, once again reviewed a victorious French army in the Place Vendôme.
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In September of 1859, following full plebiscites by their citizens, the Duchies of Modena and Parma, along with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and most of the Papal States were annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia. Garibaldi’s subsequent successful expeditions to Sicily and Naples then added these territories as well to the Italian crown.18 After some modifications, the final peace treaty was duly signed at Zurich on November 10, 1859, thereby bringing to a conclusion Italy’s final war of independence.
Meanwhile, following further plebiscites on March 24, 1860, Piedmont duly ceded Savoy to France, followed by Nice on the fifteenth of April, against English protests and a positively bitter denunciation by Nice’s most famous native son, Giuseppe Garibaldi. By September 29, 1860, the Marches of northern Italy and Umbria had also joined Victor Emmanuel’s enlarged state. The fighting was not over, however, and when an uprising against Francis II, king of the Two Sicilies, forced him to flee his capital, Palermo, in April 1860, Cavour dispatched General Garibaldi and his “red shirts” to seize that city. With his arrival at Palermo that May, peace was restored, and by September that popular general had captured Naples as well. And on March 17, 1861, Parliament officially proclaimed the creation of Victor Emmanuel’s new Kingdom of Italy, of which Rome was to become the capital ten years later.19
With the ceding of Venice by Vienna in October 1866, the unification of Italy was more or less complete. The hope for quick victory and establishment of an independent Italy had proven optimistic, however, and the complications due to an unprepared French army, and foreign pressure to end the war in 1859 prematurely before Venetia, too, could be secured for the new Italian state, had left everyone dissatisfied.
Despite their remarkable success, Victor Emmanuel remained upset with Louis Napoléon over the delay in obtaining Venice from the Austrians. No matter what he did, or how fine his motives, no one seemed to appreciate his efforts, other than the French with the addition of Nice and Savoy and nearly 700,000 new citizens.
The resultant political structure of the new Italy did surprise Louis Napoléon, of course, who had anticipated a group of independent states continuing to be ruled by their traditional dukes and princes, if under constitutional reforms. Instead he found a centrally administered nation of twenty-two million, ruled—not by the pope, but by the vain, pleasure-loving King Victor Emmanuel. At least the Austrians were out of most of Italy, however, and hereafter Italians would be ruled by Italians. And his late brother, whom he had buried in Fiorli under Austrian fire decades earlier, would be proud and at peace.
A major chapter of Louis Napoléon’s life was closed at last, and it was a renewed beginning for the modern state of Italy, an Italy that could not have been created without his personal goodwill, devotion, and steady determination, supported by the military might of the French people. France had received Nice and Savoy in return, baubles required for national honor. Despite the later accusations of his political enemies and some historians, in reality Louis Napoléon would have done it all over again without any reward, simply for the deeply felt personal joy of seeing the fulfillment of this long-sought boyhood dream. It was in a sense his finest hour. But the decline in his health observed earlier by Lord Cowley was to prove more than a passing indisposition. There was, it seemed, always a price to pay for success and happiness.