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Italian Unification - Part 2 (Feat. Marco Cappelli of Storia d'Italia)

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Italian Unification - Part 2 (Feat. Marco Cappelli of Storia d'Italia)

Episode Transcript

Abram: Welcome to Prime Factors. This week, Italian Unification, Part 2.

Parliament: Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!

Parliament: Hip hip hooray!

Abram: Hello and welcome back to Prime Factors. I'm Abram and I'm here with my dad. We usually review all the British prime ministers from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer. But I asked my dad for a special episode and he made one. Everyone clap for my dad. Say Team Joe if you're on Team Joe and Team Abram if you're on me, or Team Special Guest if you're on Marco's team.

Joe: After our last episode on Camillo Benso, the Count of Cavour, Abram asked if we could continue the story of Italian unification. And to help us with that, we have a special guest host. Marco, can you please introduce yourself?

Marco: Such a pleasure to be here. Abram and Joe, you are a fantastic couple. Yes. Who I am? I mean, I'm Marco Cappelli. I am the host of Storia d'Italia. It's a podcast about the history of Italy, obviously in Italian. So if you speak Italian or you want to learn Italian, there you go. You can go and search for Storia d'Italia. I have a daunting task because I started with Constantine and I'm going always forward. And after 200 episodes, I am about to do Charlemagne. So there is still quite a bit to cover until I get to modern times.

Joe: Abram, Constantine to Charlemagne.

Marco: Do you know?

Abram: I don't know which Constantine he's talking about, but I know Charlemagne is like 800.

Marco: Very good. I mean, you are so good. Very good. He was crowned on Christmas Day, 800. And Constantine, I'm talking about Constantine I, Constantine the Great. So, you know, all those emperors.

Abram: That's like the 100s, 200s, that area, right?

Marco: Yeah. He became emperor in the 300s. So.

Abram: Okay. So you've made it 500 years.

Marco: Yes.

Joe: When Abram and I started this podcast, right, it was always about him and I learning history together. And honestly, this has been a really fun tangent. I knew nothing about Italian history other than the basics before starting this. And there's been a lot of research getting to this point, but I'm sorry for that.

Marco: Sorry for that. Did it surprise you? Is there anything that surprised both of you? Like, something about the Italian history you covered?

Abram: Um, Cavour died at like 50. He looks so old in the pictures. He looks like he's in his 60s or almost 70, but he's in his like 40s.

Marco: Yeah, I know. People looked older back then.

Abram: They smoked.

Marco: Yeah, probably.

Joe: I gotta say, as I went through Italian history, we of course in the modern day think of Italy very much as a monolithic entity, right? So to really go back and understand and experience a little bit of the history of a divided peninsula. That's— I mean, obviously this whole series is about uniting the peninsula, but like, I had no idea just how divided and for how long it was.

Marco: Ah, yeah. Most of our history, actually Italy is younger than the United States as a country.

Abram: Yeah, by a lot.

Marco: By a lot, indeed.

Abram: The US was 1770s, Italy was 1870s.

Joe: Yeah, that's true. So last time around, I focused on Cavour. And Marco, you've listened to the episode, I hope, so that you're—

Abram: So you know this time we'll be focusing on who? No one in particular.

Joe: No one in particular. So last time I tried to just cover the things that were important to Cavour's story. But that meant I missed some stuff that would make the—

Abram: Wait, are we gonna do San Marino this time?

Joe: We'll mention San Marino, I promise. Anyway, anybody that's listening to this podcast for the first time, I do recommend going back to the Cavour episode. If you don't, you won't be completely lost if you just listen to this one. I think we're okay.

Abram: Don't forget that you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and at primefactorspodcast.com. We're also on Facebook and Bluesky. If you enjoy listening, please like, subscribe, comment, and review. 4 stars or higher.

Marco: And Storia d'Italia can be found on all of the same podcast apps as well as on italiastoria.com.

Picture This

Abram: Picture this. We open on a busy scene. It's well before dawn on the morning of September 20th, 1870. But Italian messengers and officers are buzzing around a room recently converted to war. Expensive rugs and fine upholstered chairs have been pushed aside, the hand-painted wallpaper ignored in favor of a simple wooden table that had been dragged into the hall. Lanterns and candles light the room against the predawn darkness as men on urgent business stream in and out of the room.

Marco: This is the Villa Albani-Torlonia, a mansion overlooking Rome's northern outskirts. Not far from two of Rome's famous northern gates, Porta Pia and Porta Salaria.

Abram: In the center of this maelstrom was General Raffaele Cadorna. He was bald and bearded, but stately in his uniform.

Joe: He looms over the table as officers signal the readiness of the infantry and artillery emplacements that surround Rome.

Abram: A coffee in one hand, a wooden pointer in the other, he surveyed the map. 50,000 Italian fighting men are outside. Circling the city in a ring of iron. Messenger after messenger signals Italian readiness.

Marco: If I can interrupt, Raffaele Cadorna was the father of Luigi Cadorna, and I know there's a lot of fans of Luigi Cadorna. In the First World War, he always ordered people to attack on the Isonzo River. Go check it out.

Joe: A clock on the wall strikes 5 AM. It's still dark outside, but the chimes of the clock cause everyone to pause. Cadorna takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as if in prayer.

Abram: Our view pulls away from the war room and snaps outside.

Joe: Beyond the dimly lit villa gardens and hedges and surrounded by makeshift defenses, a battery of cannoneers takes action.

Abram: They are the 5th Battery of the 9th Artillery Regiment of the Italian Army, led by Luigi Pelloux. He's a future prime minister.

Joe: Ahead of them, across the fields, are the outermost walls of Rome, the Aurelian Walls. It's too dark to see them, but the red and gray brick walls are only a few football fields ahead. These walls, completed in the 270s AD, had protected Rome against invaders and barbarians for centuries. True, Emperor Aurelian had never considered cannon fire, but equally true, he could not have imagined this army of Italy laying siege to their once and future capital.

Marco: A cry shouts out. "Fuoco!" And the cannon roars followed by a crash as its projectile slams against the walls. Gunfire erupts in the distance. Papal sharpshooters rain fire on the now-revealed artillery as the gunners dive for cover. Italian infantrymen return fire but hold position so as to stay out of the way of the cannon fire. Roar after roar, explosion after explosion sounds out as other cannons up and down the line and in other nearby emplacements fire into Rome.

Joe: On the other side of the walls, church bells rang, signaling to everyone that remained in the city to take cover, as if the explosions themselves were not enough of a message. The sun rises over a city at war, revealing an ancient city wall that was pockmarked but still standing. Papal artillery returned barrages from behind the wall, but steady Italian fire prevented them from sighting properly.

Marco: The roar continues for four long hours, explosion after explosion, until the old walls groan as ancient bricks and mortar collapse. As the smoke clears, the world seems to pause. A jagged hole, nearly 100 feet across, was torn into the once impregnable walls. A cry rings out and a bugle call. The artillery pauses their barrage as the elite Italian infantry, the Bersaglieri, charge out of their defensive positions and towards the hole in the wall.

Joe: Someone unaccustomed to their ferocity might find the Bersaglieri comical, with their wide-brimmed hats festooned by long black feathers.

Abram: Seeming like troops out of a fairy tale and not the cratered fields of 19th century battlefields. We watch as they cover the ground in minutes, carefully but quickly picking their way around the artillery craters and weaving to avoid fire.

Joe: They weren't alone long. As the Bersaglieri mounted the breach, they were met by Papal Zouaves, young volunteers that had pledged their lives to defend the Papal States and Pope Pius IX. They were brave, and they fought well defending the hole, but they were outnumbered by the more experienced Italian troops. Within minutes, they fell away, as the Italian forces streamed deeper and deeper into the city.

Marco: It was hardly more than an hour later when a white flag was raised over St. Peter's Basilica. Rome and the Pope had surrendered. They will sign the capitulation in Villa Albani, in that very same room where Cadorna laid his plans.

Abram: The battle had lasted less than six hours. The age of the popes as temporal rulers was over, and the long struggle for Italian unification, the Risorgimento, was finally complete.

Letters to the Editor

Abram: Letters to the Editor.

Joe: Before we jump into our episode, we have a couple of small corrections from our previous one. I know that a couple listeners contacted me that they had trouble visualizing the location of Italian regions that they were unfamiliar with. And well, I'm sorry, I probably couldn't have placed Turin on a map either before a couple weeks ago. Fortunately, Marco is here to help.

Marco: Oh, fantastic. I'm really happy to do so. So picture this. I'm using your words. Italy. You know the boot of Italy, right?

Abram: Yep.

Joe: Right.

Marco: But there is a piece in the north which actually is not part of the boot itself, is well inside Europe. That part is the north of Italy and it is crossed by a mighty river. Mighty, okay, for Italy is not the Mississippi, the River Po. Okay. So you have this big valley, flatlands in the north of Italy where usually most of the population of actually of the country are there, is like almost half. The boot that you are more familiar with then has two main islands, right? So Sardinia and Sicily. Now, how was Italy divided in 1850— '59, when all this started, let's say the Second War of Independence. Well, we had the main Italian state that you always talked about is the Kingdom of Sardinia. Actually, the title is Sardinia. So one of the two islands, the poorest and less populated one. However, the real core of that country was northwestern Italy. So in the north, the western parts towards France, and that's Piedmont and Liguria, the region of Genoa. So you have Turin and Genoa in that area, northwestern Italy. And just to say, Piedmont, I know, is also a name of a region in the United States near the Appalachians. So that's where it comes from. It means at the foot of the Alps, basically. Piedmont, at the feet of the Alps. Then if we go east from there, but we stay well in the north, we have— and north of the River Po, we have the area under directly under the Austrians. So the Lombardy-Veneto. So this was basically the main Italian piece of the Austrian Empire, was a very rich area for the Austrian Empire. About one-third of their income came from there. So it was very important for them to keep it. In this area, we have Milan and Venice, okay? The two main cities of Lombardy and Veneto. Now, still, let's say in central Italy, what is today Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. So we're talking now, we're going south on the boot, but still in the middle, we have several small states, the central duchies. Tuscany, Parma, Modena. They are not really central in this story, just to know that they are basically under the Austrian thumb. They really are dependent on Austria as well. Okay. Then across the peninsula in the middle, weirdly going diagonally across the peninsula from Rome towards Ravenna, we have the Papal States. So it goes coast to coast. So it goes from the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west to the Adriatic Sea in the east diagonally. Why is this so? This used to be the main road to go from Rome to Milan, and that's why it has this funny shape, this state. The Papal States obviously were under the Pope, and these included mostly Rome, and smaller regions of Italy, which are less central to the story. Finally, the biggest state, actually the one that comprised almost half of Italy, was the Kingdom of Naples or the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, as we will— as you discussed and we will discuss.

Abram: So why are there two Sicilies? Like, isn't that confusing?

Marco: I know, but I think you covered it. So there's two Sicilies. Because basically there used to be one Kingdom of Sicily which had Sicily in the south, but was conquered by the French. But then the Spaniards helped Sicily to rebel against the French, and the French, they had as their capital Naples. So it was still formally the Kingdom of Sicily, the one in Naples, but there were now two Kingdoms of Sicily, one with capital in Naples comprising the south, and one with capital Palermo in Sicily comprising only Sicily. So when they reunited those two kingdoms, they called it confusingly the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But yeah, there's only one Sicily, there's no two, there's not— only one island. It's hard to do geography on a podcast, so it's always complicated to— but I really, I strongly suggest look at a map of Italy in 1859 before unification, and you'll see all these countries that I mentioned. So Kingdom of Sardinia, northwest, then Lombardy-Veneto, northeast, then in the center Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, then the Papal States in the center, a bit south of that, and then the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Joe: So the other thing that I failed to mention that was brought up is that Napoleon had declared himself King of Italy.

Marco: He did that, but not of the entire peninsula, because the Kingdom of Italy was only in reality a piece of Italy. So there were in reality two kingdoms in Italy under Napoleon's rule: the Kingdom of Italy in the north and the Kingdom of Naples in the south. So in reality, he was never king of the entire country. And I will say there was a third piece of Italy which was directly annexed to France. So for example, Piedmont with Turin, which eventually ended up uniting Italy, that was directly annexed into France. Also, Rome was directly annexed into the French Empire.

Joe: Hmm. So complicated, but it's so fun. Oh, and of course we had the islands, right? So the island of Sicily was still under British protection and Sardinia was still independent.

Marco: Yeah, it was in— both were independent because of the British Navy. So, you know, the French didn't rule the seas and so they couldn't get to Sicily and Sardinia. That's the whole reason.

Joe: Oh, and Abram, San Marino, still independent. Napoleon liked it, I guess, or maybe it was just really inconvenient. So when Napoleon was finally defeated, the European powers met at the 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna, and they restored most of Italy's pre-conquest rulers, right? So that's what you had just discussed. So even though Napoleon had scrambled up the borders, mostly it was brought back. Austria at that point became the key power. Yeah, propping up the governments, right, in the Papal States, the Two Sicilies. They directly integrated Lombardy and Venetia.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: And they became like the new France, right? They took France's place as the controlling power.

Marco: Yeah. You know, the only country they didn't restore that, you know, the big exception was Venice. Before the Napoleonic times, Venice was an independent republic and had been for 1,000 years. But after the Napoleonic Wars, they restored most of the states, but not Venice, which was directly annexed into the Austrian Empire.

Joe: Yes. Well, what I find really interesting about this Congress, right, is you had Prince Klemens von Metternich, right, not yet the Chancellor of the Austrian Empire. He stated that, quote, "Italy is a geographical expression," which is a nice way of saying it's not a political one.

Marco: Yeah, he wasn't completely wrong about that for the time.

Joe: That is true. And thankfully, many in Italy didn't share his views.

Meanwhile in the Rest of Italy

Abram: Meanwhile, in the rest of Italy.

Joe: As Marco knows, and quite frankly, he's been so kind to explain to me when we're not recording, Italy wasn't now, it wasn't then, a monolith. And for our story—

Abram: What's a monolith?

Joe: A monolith means like—

Abram: A weird structure thing?

Joe: It is a weird structure thing.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: Go ahead.

Marco: It's a rock that doesn't have a crack, right? It's just one piece, no? So Italy wasn't one piece. It's a lot, lots of pieces.

Abram: It was stone.

Marco: It's the Stone Age is the story.

Joe: I think, Abram, the point was that the culture of southern Italy was very different than the culture of northern Italy. The south was more rural. It had less transportation, less education.

Abram: Then why would anyone live there?

Joe: Well, because you need farms.

Abram: You need farms. Good enough.

Marco: Yeah. I mean, it has been populated since the dawn of time. So, and it didn't used to be always the poorest part of Italy. There were times in Italian history where it was actually the richest part. In early Roman time, it was the richest part, and it was probably the richest part also in some parts of the Middle Ages.

Abram: But after like the, like 1300s or so around there, it stopped and started to be like—

Marco: Yeah, but, and I will say sometimes the industrial age has increased the differences. So yes, it's true, it was poorer and more rural, but in reality, all Italy was poor at the time. So we're talking about differences in how poor you are.

Abram: It was poor versus really poor, kind of.

Marco: Exactly. So that's— you get the impression.

Joe: The way that I was looking at this, Abram, was it's not the same, but it's not so different from like the American South versus the American North.

Abram: Slavery versus not slavery.

Joe: No slavery.

Marco: There's no slavery, but I will say there's the difference between Northern and Southern Italy is comparable in distance and even cultural distance to North and Southern US. And I know both of them. So I think it's not a stretch.

Joe: Southern Italy was also the birthplace of the Carbonari. That's a secret society of Italians. I don't really understand secret societies. So Marco, maybe you could explain them.

Marco: Well, it's very simple. If you have a very oppressive regime that doesn't allow you to speak freely, then you need to speak secretly. So you need to go underground and organize a revolution. These are basically revolutionary societies, not very different in kind to the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union or, you know, or any other kind of revolutionaries.

Abram: I was just reading about them.

Joe: You were just reading about the Bolsheviks?

Abram: Yeah.

Marco: Wow. Abram, you are so cool. You're the best 12-year-old a father can ask for. So yes, that's exactly right. So I mean, the culture is very different. They are not communist. They want— they are liberals. So they want— because at this stage the government is very oppressive. So they want liberal reforms. There will be a time when the liberals will be in power and the more extreme communist or socialist will want to topple them. But right now it's liberals against authoritarians.

Joe: But, Abram, the point of these societies was, of course, they were secret. They were treasonous. The Carbonari were responsible in part for the revolts in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies that we talked about in our last episode.

Abram: Yes.

Joe: They were the ones that inspired copycats across Europe and in—

Marco: Meow.

Joe: And in Piedmont-Sardinia. This is when the King of Sardinia was deposed in 1821. That's sad. And his successor couldn't get to Turin. And Prince Charles Albert tried to put in a constitution. But then Charles Felix threw it out. Do you remember?

Abram: Yeah.

Marco: Basically what these Carbonari wanted was to have a constitution. Imagine the US already had a constitution, but this was written and approved just a few decades earlier. Right. And the US, they had, you know, you guys had those freedoms like to assemble, to talk, but they didn't have it in Italy or in all continental Europe really at this point of time. And what these Carbonari wanted was to have a constitution first, and also they wanted the unification of Italy. But then the rulers, they were ruling directly. They didn't have a constitution, so they didn't want to give a constitution to their subjects. They were treating them as subjects, not as citizens.

Joe: In 1820, the Carbonari actually convinced King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies to grant a constitution. But then King Ferdinand was brought into a special conference with his principal and his peers.

Abram: And they said no constitution.

Marco: No constitution. Yeah.

Joe: Yes. And indeed he allowed Austria to invade.

Marco: Because you need to understand after 1815, so after Napoleon was defeated, all the powers of continental Europe, they agreed, we do not want any constitution on this continent. No one has to be free. So whenever someone in some countries, there will be a small revolution bringing constitution to that place, these reactionary powers, so Austria, Prussia, and Russia, they wanted to make sure that nobody had a constitution.

Joe: Yes. Constitution bad. Bad.

Abram: Get rid of it at once. Throw the tuning forks.

Marco: Exactly. Pitchforks and prisons and you cannot speak.

Joe: This is where we get into the next big famous name that we didn't talk about last time that I'm sure I would get bad mail about, which was Giuseppe Mazzini.

Abram: Mazzini!

Joe: He was one of the Carbonari, but he was arrested— well, discovered, arrested in 1830, but he was allowed to go into exile. And while in exile, he started a Young Italy movement to fight for Italian independence. And, you know, when Charles Albert became the King of Sardinia, 1831—

Abram: Was that the guy who turned evil?

Joe: Yes, he's the guy who started off as liberal, but then those hopes were dashed. But Mazzini was the one that hoped that he would still have some of that liberal spark, and he was disappointed.

Marco: And Mazzini was a radical for the time because he didn't just want a constitution. He wanted a republic, which again, that means— imagine these people, they didn't even want a constitution. Imagine getting rid of the king, you know, like the US had done a few decades earlier, or Revolution in France.

Abram: But this wasn't the Americas. This was Europe, the land before the kings.

Marco: Oh, but they knew about what happened. And also America had a king before and they got rid of them. And then France had a king and they got rid of it.

Abram: Aren't they going through a time where they aren't really sure if they have a king or not?

Joe: Yeah, France waffles on the whole—

Abram: I would say after 1780, they started to like, do we have a king? Do we not have a king? Do we have basically a king? Do we have a person who has a different role than a king? Do we have whatever? And that kind of ended, I would say, in 1880. So from around 1780 to 1880, they were kind of like that, I think.

Marco: You are perfectly right. They did that with the emperors and kings up until 1870, basically, when you have the Franco-Prussian War, which we will talk about. Yeah.

Joe: I have in my notes here, and maybe this is an oversimplification, that Mazzini, he had a hobby and his hobby was staging revolts.

Marco: Yes, definitely.

Joe: And he's going to try his first in 1833. He rose up in Sardinia only to have the plot discovered and the leaders arrested. He was tried in absentia and sentenced to death.

Marco: What?

Abram: He dead?

Joe: No, he was in exile. They have to catch him to kill him.

Marco: And he lived in London for a long time. And, you know, another guy that was at this time in London, Karl Marx. So they knew each other very well. He's the founder of communism. Oh, and they hated each other. By the way, because they were two revolutionaries but slightly different. So of course, revolutionaries, if you're not exactly the same, they always hate each other.

Joe: They eat their own, those revolutionaries. Speaking of which, in 1834, he tried again and this time was joined by somebody that we know.

Abram: Cavour?

Joe: Giuseppe Garibaldi.

Abram: Was he bald?

Joe: I'm pretty sure we determined he wasn't bald.

Marco: No, he wasn't. He wasn't.

Joe: It's a phonetical coincidence.

Marco: Very disappointing.

Joe: But that revolt failed as well. He tried to organize more revolts in northern Italy, southern Italy, anywhere that the Young Italy members and their ideals could reach, but he failed each and every time.

Abram: That's sad. Is he gonna give up?

Joe: Probably not. So remember how Cavour said that he didn't trust revolutionaries to get the job done?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: I think Mazzini was the type of person he was thinking about. Cavour really thought that change had to come through political means, not through revolutionary means. Also, Cavour kind of liked kings. Mazzini didn't like kings.

Marco: You know, this— yeah.

Joe: As Cavour sits around, and at this point in our story, he's tending to his estates, the idea of Italy grows, and leaders like Mazzini and Garibaldi, they're not making a lot of progress. In the 1840s, political leaders started to step up. Vincenzo Gioberti publishes a pamphlet calling for Italy to unite under the Pope.

Marco: Yeah. And, you know, Gioberti was a neo-Guelph because he wanted Italy to not be unified by a king, but by the Pope. And why neo-Guelph? Because in the Middle Ages, there were, you know, when there were fights between the popes and the emperors, basically, the Guelphs were the supporters of the Pope and the Ghibellines were the supporters of the Emperor. So Neo-Guelph is like bringing a medieval political concept into the 19th century.

Joe: That is cool. Anyway, meanwhile, Cavour and the journalists in Turin, they were starting to push for their constitution. You remember that? And revolutions across Europe inspired Sardinia to get its constitution in 1848. Yes, we also covered that already. But our story, Abram, we're going to have a more important event and one that brings Garibaldi into focus. Abram, we need to talk about what's going on in Rome.

Abram: What's happening in Rome?

The New Roman Republic

Abram: The new Roman Republic.

Marco: In November 1848, we almost had a very different republican future of Italy. Of course, I mean, republican— not in the American sense, but in Italian sense as a republic. Okay. When I was a kid, people still said "at the time we had a '48." That meant that something truly revolutionary or, you know, a big mess just happened. You know, it's a '48. We had a '48. This is a reference to 1848 when the new order built by the reactionary powers of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon started to crumble, and for a time it looked, you know, that all of that will go into the bin of history. In Italy, last time, you know, during the last episode, you learned what happened from the point of view of Cavour and the monarchy of the Kingdom of Sardinia. However, Italy is small but long, and many things were happening at the same time in other parts of the country. Also, Venice rebelled against the Austrians and re-proclaimed the Republic of St. Mark, you know, the old republic that had been not resurrected.

Abram: Why did they not resurrect Venice, but they resurrected everyone else?

Marco: Because the Austrians hated Venice. You know, it was a republic. It was not a monarchy. And they honestly, they just wanted to rule the place. So, you know, they said—

Abram: They liked Venice.

Marco: Yeah, they liked Venice. No chance. We like it. We keep it. Finders keepers. So down in Rome, the Pope tried to govern the choppy waters by joining at first the effort to get rid of the Austrians, but then quickly backing down because he suddenly remembered that the Austrian emperor actually was a Catholic monarch. So he wasn't supposed to pick sides between two Catholic powers. Anyways, the liberals at that point became more and more frustrated with Pius IX, you know, the Pope. And they now had some serious power because the Pope had proclaimed in March of '48 the first constitution of the Papal States, allowing for a parliament and a civilian government. Imagine, you know, like a country ruled by the Pope but with a parliament. That's really weird. It lasted—

Abram: Yeah, it's weird.

Marco: Yeah, it didn't last for a long time because just in November of 1848, Pellegrino Rossi, the powerful Minister of the Interior, basically the head of the police and de facto head of the civilian government, was assassinated by revolutionaries, very likely inspired or actually probably sent by Mazzini. So liberal mobs flooded the streets of Rome and demanded the resumption of the war against Austria and union with the other Italian states. So they wanted to, you know, to join with Piedmont and to join with all the other states that were fighting the Austrians. All these things were anathema for the papal temporal powers. So Pope Pius IX did like the French king, you know, Louis XVI. He disguised himself as a priest and fled to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But unlike Louis XVI, he succeeded. Yeah. He succeeded, he ran away. So imagine when he was elected, Abram, everybody in Italy were so excited because this was like a very liberal pope. But, you know, the history turned out to be quite different. Anyway, so Mazzini jumped on this as a chance not only to reclaim Italy's capital in the name of national unification, but, you know, as his dream for that nation to be a republic. Elections were held in January of '49 among the entire population of the Papal States. So not just in Rome to decide what to do next. Again, for reference, the Papal States included much of central Italy from Rome to the Adriatic. These were the first elections in the history of Italy using the male universal suffrage. So do you know what that means, Abram?

Abram: No.

Marco: So it means that all males, unfortunately not women, that was not a thing yet. All males could vote. Even in America, that was a new thing. I think universal suffrage in America only was established in the 1820s. So all males, regardless of income, could vote. In most other countries, if there was the possibility to vote, only the rich people voted. So anyway, the Italian kingdom will get eventually to universal suffrage only in 1912. So it would take a while. Of course, Pius IX demanded that all Catholics refuse to participate on penalty of excommunication. They could not vote, but everybody did anyways.

Joe: Abram, do you know what excommunication is?

Abram: No.

Joe: Excommunication is when the Pope can basically say you are not Catholic. And by the way, since you are not really Catholic, you are going to hell.

Marco: Yeah. Technically speaking, you cannot take the communion, so you can go to Mass, but you cannot participate to Mass every Sunday. So that was a big deal for people. And it is a big deal still for people that are religious. So the new assembly met in January 1849, and on February 5th, they declared the Pope deposed as a ruler and proclaimed the Roman Republic, which is quite a nice name, has a good ring to it, right? The Roman Republic. So they modeled themselves off the old Roman state, deciding that they would be ruled also by a Triumvirate of three leaders. Well, these were, you know, difficult times, so they had to basically have someone in power that called the shots. So anyways, you know how the Triumvirate ends up, Abram, I think. It doesn't end up very well in the Roman Empire, in the Roman Republic story. It will not end up well also in this case.

Joe: Do you know the story of the late Roman, the original Roman Republic?

Abram: They decided they wanted full rule.

Marco: Well, at the end, basically what happened is that one of the triumvirs, so one of the three men, became dictator of Rome. So, and that was a man called Julius Caesar.

Abram: Yeah, I've heard of him.

Marco: Yeah, yeah, he died because the senators didn't like him, and then he was killed. But then they formed a second Triumvirate, and then also one of these three people became dictator. An emperor. The first emperor. Yeah, Emperor Augustus.

Abram: Yeah, also Caesar.

Marco: Also Caesar. Yeah, very correct. Anyways, so obviously, you know, Europe was, you know, the more conservative powers in Italy and Europe wouldn't allow this to stand. A republic. So France, funnily, you know, at this time, you know, again, France was reactionary, invades to restore the papal authority. Austria occupies the regions of Marche and Umbria. These are two of the regions in between, you know, north of Rome, but in the Papal States. Even Naples invaded from the south, so they were really surrounded. The case of France is particularly striking. There were lots of Catholics in France, and President Louis Napoleon— President Louis Napoleon— felt that aiding the Pope would improve his popularity at home. Plus, France didn't want to leave Rome to the Austrians, obviously. So Giuseppe Garibaldi was leading a group of volunteers defending the Republic, and he was able to keep the French away, but he was forced to pull his punches. Hundreds of French prisoners that he took were released by Mazzini as a gesture of goodwill towards the French Republic, which is about to turn into the Second Empire. But that's another story. Mazzini is certain that he can convince President Louis Napoleon to see things his way and consistently works to not antagonize the invader. Why wouldn't the French Republic see the Roman Republic as a natural ally? In this way, however, Mazzini completely misreads the situation. He doesn't realize that Louis Napoleon has imperial ambitions of his own and will shortly make himself Napoleon III. Louis Napoleon doesn't also share Mazzini's romantic view of democracy and instead sees restoring the Papal States as a way for France to gain a powerful client kingdom in the center of Italy. In June 1849, France placed Rome under siege. Garibaldi and several thousand troops fight on, but are ultimately defeated and he is forced to flee to San Marino— there you go, San Marino again— where he is granted a limited asylum. He gathers up a fleet of fishing and commercial ships in a rough attempt to make a break for Venice— Venice was the last holdout of this revolutionary time— but Austria cornered him and destroyed his little armada. In the escape, Garibaldi's wife Anita died of malaria in Ravenna, by the way. I was in that city just a few days ago, and there's a very beautiful statue of Anita. This will harden Garibaldi's resolve against the imperial powers of Europe. Ah, we do get one more special moment in this story. Garibaldi promised the government that he would support them to remain independent even if he succeeded in building a united Italy. This promise would be kept and is one of the main reasons that San Marino remains independent even to this day, celebrated as a national holiday: Scampo di Garibaldi.

Cavour Creates Italy

Abram: Cavour creates Italy.

Joe: From here, we can finally fast forward our way through the story to the points that we covered last time, right?

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Cavour's rise in Piedmont politics continued. He became prime minister of Sardinia in 1852. He pushed Sardinia towards the Crimean War. And meanwhile, Mazzini was still out there trying to spark revolts across Italy, but he didn't have a ton of successes. In fact, it kind of seems to me like the people of Italy are getting a little bit tired of the fighting and revolting. Because it's been a couple of decades since, you know, there's been stability. But who knows? In one famous case in 1857, a revolutionary named Carlo Pisacane— is that right?

Marco: Yeah, that's correct.

Joe: He tried an insurrection in Sardinia. He landed volunteers at Sapri in southwest Italy, and it failed completely. Abram, do you want to know why?

Abram: Because there are too many cows there.

Joe: Maybe. Even the local peasants pushed back. They didn't want him. And maybe the cows too. And everyone died.

Abram: That's sad. Even the cows?

Joe: I think the cows are fine.

Abram: They might be the ones who killed them.

Joe: Yeah, probably. The point is, it was a cautionary tale for anyone that wanted to try another revolt. Do you remember when I told you that an Italian assassin tried to kill Napoleon III at an opera house?

Abram: Did they kill him?

Marco: No.

Joe: No, they tried to assassinate him.

Abram: Hit him. How close did it get?

Marco: I think it was pretty close. And by the way, this is Opéra Garnier. If you go to Paris, it's a really nice opera.

Joe: We've been to Paris. I don't think we've been to the opera there.

Abram: No.

Joe: In any event, this attempted assassination of Napoleon III led to what I called Cavour's Uno reverse card, and he convinced France to go to war against Austria with him. And that was mostly due to his skill as a politician. But this assassin had been a former Mazzini supporter, although supposedly that attack was not one that Mazzini encouraged.

Marco: Mm-hmm.

Joe: From here, the story keeps going. France and Italy are able to strike together at Austria. They take Lombardy, but France surprises everyone by exiting the fighting early with an armistice. King Victor Emmanuel II refused to keep fighting, and Cavour resigned from government.

Abram: Bye Cavour.

Joe: But when he came back, Cavour essentially broke a promise to France and Austria by not relinquishing the northern duchies of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, and the former papal territory of Romagna, and then setting up votes to allow them to join Sardinia. And of course, Sardinia, when you set up votes like that, you don't arrange them to lose.

Marco: Yeah, no, no, these were plebiscites. Basically, they were— the only option was to join. And basically here we are talking about all those small states between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which meanwhile had also acquired Lombardy. So Milan.

Joe: So at the same time, Giuseppe Garibaldi, he was still looking for ways to bring revolution to Italy, incensed by Victor Emmanuel II's surrender of his home of Nice to France. And by the way, we did see the statue that honors the transfer of Nice to France. We were there. He considered an expedition to reclaim it, but instead Mazzini pushed for revolts in Sicily. And you know what they told him, Abram?

Abram: What?

Joe: Mazzini told the people in Sicily that if they revolted, quote, "Garibaldi will come." Dun dun dun! And so the people revolted and Garibaldi came. And this is called the Expedition of the Thousand, and it successfully toppled the government of the Two Sicilies. Guess what? They had a vote. They join Sardinia, and at this point it's called the Kingdom of Italy. Yay!

Marco: So can I tell you one little story?

Joe: Please.

Marco: So the Thousand, Mille in Italian, they wore these red shirts, right? They were famous for these red revolutionary shirts. My grandma, my great-grandma, she died when she was 102. Wow. And I've met her. Okay. And she told me that when she was young, there was a guy in her village going around in a red shirt all the time. And that's because he participated in the mission of Garibaldi. So there's only one person between me and Garibaldi, and that's my great-grandma.

Abram: That means I only have to go through a few people to get to Garibaldi.

Joe: So you've now talked to someone who's talked to someone who's talked to someone who talked to Garibaldi.

Abram: And then Garibaldi, who did he famously talk to?

Marco: To? I don't know.

Abram: Cavour. And then Cavour talked to Louis Napoleon.

Marco: He was a celebrity. But you know, Abram, he was a celebrity. When he came to New York once, the entire streets were completely filled because he was a celebrity. There's even a statue to Garibaldi in the center of New York. I think it's, uh, what is the name of the park? Let me check. I don't know. I will check immediately. Is in Washington Square Park.

Joe: We have been there. Anyway, a better podcast, Abram, would cover the Expedition of the Thousand in more detail. It's a hugely defining moment in the history of Italy, but we don't have time. Just remember that Southern Italy really isn't like Northern Italy. Garibaldi just took the region by force, and not everyone there is happy about it.

Marco: Yeah, to say the least.

Abram: That's sad.

Joe: In my summary last time, I did miss a detail. While Garibaldi was invading Sicily, Sardinia actually marched an army southward and they seized two regions of the Papal States, the Marches and Umbria. They did not move on to Rome from there. Cavour specifically pushed Garibaldi to not try to take Rome, but nearly all of the Papal States other than the core are now part of Italy.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: And this was a few months before Cavour died.

Marco: Yeah. And they did that because they wanted to reach southern Italy. And, you know, the Papal States were in the way, basically. And eventually the regular Italian army and Garibaldi, they met in southern Italy, and Garibaldi decided to basically, you know, relinquish his dream of a republican Italy to join forces with the king.

Joe: So just to summarize, Cavour has now died.

Abram: No.

Joe: At the time of his death, Italy was a new country. It wasn't accepted by everyone, not even its own citizens. The capital was still at Turin with control over various parts of the peninsula. That still leaves the northeast corner, including Venice, under Austrian control, as well as the center around Rome under papal control, but at this point heavily fortified by France. And those, Venice and Rome, are the two critical problems that'll weigh on the architects of the remaining unification.

Uniting Italy

Abram: Uniting Italy.

Joe: In a bit of historical poetry, Cavour's death actually helped along the cause of Italian unification. Up to this point, a few countries like the United States and Britain and Switzerland had recognized Italy, but none of the big continental powers. Instead, they still called it the Kingdom of Sardinia. But the groundswell of love and admiration for this great, now dead Italian politician, it encouraged Napoleon III to recognize the new country. And from there, Russia and others followed. Austria, not so much. But although the world was starting to see Italy as a united country, the same could not be said of its people. In southern Italy, there was a lot of discontent. Many still supported the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Others supported the Pope. And this was made worse because the government in Turin, which was desperately far from the people of Sicily and Naples—

Marco: Yeah, it's in a corner up in the northwest.

Joe: Yeah, they announced conscription. Do you know what conscription is, Abram?

Abram: They threw a bunch of tuning forks at some cows.

Joe: No, conscription is when you decide to take, you know, the young male adults of your country and force them to fight.

Marco: And force them to fight. Always unpopular for obvious reasons.

Joe: And some of the men decided, you know, if they're gonna fight, maybe I shouldn't be fighting with this new Italy. Maybe I should be fighting against it.

Abram: So they betrayed.

Joe: And there were real economic issues, right? A lot of the peasants that had fought to overturn the king thought that there'd be economic redistribution, that there'd be help.

Marco: Oh yeah. They fought against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies because they wanted the land, the land of the big owners. And of course they didn't get it.

Joe: Really, I think the peasants found themselves in exactly the same position. Just with a new boss.

Marco: Yeah, more or less.

Joe: These factors together led to the creation of something called, in English, the brigand bands. I imagine you have a really great word in Italian.

Marco: Yeah, briganti is the same. And by the way, often it was the same boss as before. It wasn't even a new boss, it was the old boss which had just changed king. There's a great Italian novel set at this time, it's called Gattopardo. In this novel, there's a famous phrase saying everything must change for everything to stay the same. And this is exactly what happened. We will change the government and unify the country, but the fundamental structure of the economy will stay the same.

Joe: Yeah. Wow. I don't even have words. The point is that these disgruntled people, some of them wanted to restore the previous rulers because why not? And these bands actually emerged all over Italy, but in the south they were especially prevalent and the Papal States would actively support them. They would shelter them if they were attacked. So new Prime Minister Bettino Ricasoli. Is that how—?

Marco: Yes. Very good. Very good. You got it. And by the way, I really like that you are ringing the bell. It's very symbolic. Because when we still today, when we change prime minister, you know what they do? They hand over each other a bell, which they use for the meetings of the ministers. You know, when you want the ministers to stop talking, you know, you're like—

Joe: He's Prime Minister number 2. He committed 100,000 Italian troops to try to put these revolts down. If you were sending 100,000 troops from the north to put down revolts in the south, it sounds a little bit like you're trying to occupy your own country.

Marco: Yeah. And I can tell you, this has created wounds that are still alive. There's still people mad about this to this very day.

Joe: We don't have enough time to cover him in a full episode, but Ricasoli, he should get some credit for other difficult and unpopular things that went on. He abolished semi-independent governments in Tuscany, removed the military governors from Naples and Sicily. He standardized the money across the country. He consolidated the debts, and he even decided that everyone had to switch back to the metric system, which considering that the French were also trying to impose the metric system, probably, that's an interesting parallel.

Marco: Yeah, but because it's so useful and makes so much sense, which country wouldn't have the metric system.

Joe: Yeah, I mean, you'd have to be a moron to not use the metric system, wouldn't you?

Marco: But yes, at the end everybody agreed that it was a good idea. But I will say there's a famous saying in this time of Italian history that "Fatta l'Italia, dobbiamo fare gli italiani"— we have made Italy, now we have to make Italians. Just to explain that Italians didn't exist yet, you had to basically create a school system, create, unify the laws, unify everything, build railways that connected each piece of Italy. So it was a gargantuan task. These first few years were very important for that.

Joe: He's an important guy, but nothing lasts forever, Abram. And in March 1862, Ricasoli and King Victor Emmanuel, they had little disagreements over some of the priorities. Ricasoli wanted to push for Rome, while Victor Emmanuel II wanted to focus on reclaiming Venice. So what happened? Ricasoli resigned and Urbano Rattazzi became Prime Minister number 3. But even though Victor Emmanuel II wanted to focus on Venice—

Abram: We went from Nice to Venice—

Joe: Giuseppe Garibaldi also disagreed and was willing to disobey the king to get it. Just like he had done to bring Sicily into the fold. But would Victor Emmanuel II and Rattazzi support this mission that could possibly turn France against them?

Abram: No way.

Marco: No way.

Garibaldi vs Rome, Part 2

Abram: Garibaldi versus Rome, part 2.

Joe: In 1862, Rome was isolated. Almost all the Papal States territory had been lost, leaving only Rome and its immediate surroundings under the control of the Pope. Most of their military might was gone, and they held on primarily through the help of French troops that garrisoned the city. As long as these troops were there, a military attack risked making France an enemy as well as the Pope. There had been some peaceful attempts. A Petition of 9,000 Priests was organized to have Catholics pressure the Pope to join Italy. But that didn't work. And like he had done far too many times before, Giuseppe Garibaldi, he'd just raised an army of volunteers. Mazzini liked it. He supported the effort. And the Young Italy faction, what was left of it, joined.

Abram: But didn't they all die against the cows?

Joe: I think that was a different group that died against the cows.

Marco: No, they were— it's the same group.

Abram: You know, there were different people of them.

Marco: Different people. Different people.

Joe: King Victor Emmanuel II and his government warned Garibaldi not to try to take Rome, but with his battle cry of "Rome or Death!", Garibaldi was intent on taking the city by force.

Marco: Yeah. Okay, so now in Italian the saying is "O Roma o morte," you know, "Rome or death." Unfortunately, this cry was used by fascists during their uprising to gain power in the 1920s, so we do not use it anymore. It's not allowed in Italy. But there is a small city near Rome called Orte. So to make fun of fascists, sometimes we say, "O Roma, o Orte."

Abram: What is it?

Joe: Instead of "O Roma, o morte," they say, "O Roma, o Orte."

Abram: Why?

Marco: Just to say, well, if I cannot go to Rome, I'll go to Orte, but I don't want to die for, you know, for—

Abram: So you would go to—

Joe: So you would just go to this other place sitting near it. Yes.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: Prime Minister Rattazzi. He had many of Garibaldi's men arrested before they could leave the country. Garibaldi managed to assemble a force on the island of Sicily and cross the strait, but he was met not by the Papal army, but by the Italian army on the other side. Garibaldi was wounded in the resulting battle and arrested.

Abram: Garibaldi.

Joe: That he would lose to an Italian army, the very same nation that he was trying to build. Yeah, that's weird, right?

Marco: Yeah.

Abram: Why did he lose?

Marco: Well, first of all, why did they block him? They blocked him because the Italian army, the Italian government didn't want to cause a war against France. So from their point of view, they were trying to avoid a disaster. But to avoid a disaster, they had to fight the most famous Italian there was.

Joe: Yeah, it's a beautiful but very sad irony.

Marco: Yeah. So in Italy we even have a song for that. Every Italian knows it. It's called "Garibaldi fu ferito, fu ferito." I will sing it a little bit. "Garibaldi fu ferito, fu ferito ad una gamba. Garibaldi che comanda, che comanda il battaglione." So Garibaldi was shot at, at a leg, and he was leading, you know, an army. Doesn't make any sense. It just sounds okay.

Joe: I think it sounds wonderful. The resulting scandal of Italy imprisoning and maybe even putting on trial one of their greatest ever heroes, well, that led to the collapse of the government. And Luigi Carlo Farini becomes Prime Minister number 4. But he's in ill health. He only lasts a couple months before Marco Minghetti takes office as number 5.

Marco: Yeah. So by the way, this continuous dance of prime ministers is typical of Italy. We change a lot of prime ministers, you may have noted, but in reality, politics stay more the same. You know, they just change kind of the person running things. But yeah.

Joe: With the Roman situation calmed for now—

Marco: Italy?

Joe: Did he conquer Rome? No, no, he didn't conquer Rome. They stopped— the Italians stopped him from conquering Rome by arresting him.

Marco: By arresting him.

Joe: And shooting at him.

Marco: And shooting at him.

Joe: With that situation calmed for now, Italy and France came to a new deal. France would withdraw their troops from Rome in 1866 if and only if Italy made Florence as their capital instead of Rome. King Victor Emmanuel II agreed to the change. The deal is signed.

Abram: Florence instead of Rome or Florence instead of Turin?

Marco: Yeah, Florence instead of Turin. So Turin was the capital until 1866, and then it became Florence. So Florence for a short time was the capital of Italy.

Joe: What I read, and maybe it's right and maybe it's not, is that this negotiation, the idea that if you made Florence into the capital now, you wouldn't try to make Rome into the capital in two years. That would be crazy.

Marco: Yeah, exactly. That would be crazy. Like you spend all this money to move all the ministers to Florence, and then you have to move them again to Rome. Who will do that?

Abram: Florence at least is pretty close to Rome. Not really close, but like close. It's a closer distance from Florence to Rome than Turin to Florence, I think.

Marco: Indeed, indeed. You are perfectly right. And Florence is more in the center, so it did make more sense as a capital.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Unfortunately, Prime Minister Minghetti is known as a bit of a heavy-handed politician. He enacted something called the Pica Law in 1863, which permitted the police to arrest just about anyone the government didn't like. Ostensibly, this was to prevent the brigandage, make it more difficult for people like Garibaldi to happen again.

Abram: He's bald.

Joe: But it made the government no longer look quite as nice as it might. What's the difference between a government with absolute power and a government with absolute power? It looked kind of the same.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: So when the capital was moved, actually riots broke out in Turin the 22nd and 23rd of September, 1864. Minghetti turned Italian troops against the rioters, massacring many of the people. Victor Emmanuel was so intensely angry about this that he lost faith in almost the whole system. He threw out the government and he appointed an old friend and a former prime minister of Sardinia, General Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, as Prime Minister number 6.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: Besides, he knows that they're going to need a real military leader of Italy soon, and La Marmora will be just the man for the job.

Marco: Yeah, he is famous in Italy.

Italy Loses a War but Gains Venice

Abram: Italy loses a war but gains Venice.

Joe: To understand the next part, Abram, we need to zoom out and look at what was going on between France, Austria, and Prussia. Italy, it's not driving these events, but they're going to take advantage of them.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: So Napoleon, not the third one or the second one that we don't talk about, but the first one.

Abram: Why don't we talk about the second one?

Joe: I don't think he lasted long.

Marco: Yeah, he never really governed. So he gets a number. But the people that were Napoleonic faction in France, they think he counts, but he never ruled because the Bourbons were back, you know, the previous kings. So anyways, sorry, too much history. That's the baseline.

Joe: We're on a history podcast. There's no such thing. Anyway, Napoleon I, he defeated, he dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II became Austrian Emperor Francis I. Got that?

Abram: Okay.

Marco: Yeah. And it's such an awesomely important moment. Because, you know, this Holy Roman Empire had been going on now for 1,000 years. So from Charlemagne was crowned, like you said, Abram, in 800, and here we are, 1806, and finally it's dead.

Joe: Goodbye.

Marco: Begone.

Joe: So Francis II became Austrian Emperor Francis I, and much of the rest of the Holy Roman Empire became a French client state. And whenever we've been talking about Italy in the previous episode having problems with Austria, that country started right then. Now, when Napoleon was defeated, that same conference where Metternich was dismissive of Italy also dealt with how the German territories would be divided. And they formed a new German Confederation consisting of 39 mostly independent German-speaking countries, with the largest two being Austria and Prussia. Austria and Prussia were also weird because they also had parts that didn't speak German. Yeah, try to follow this. So Austria and Prussia were in the German Confederation, but they had bits that weren't in the German Confederation.

Abram: Why?

Marco: Yeah, because Europe is complicated. There's nothing simple. But basically, imagine this. This is a German Confederation of all the German-speaking parts. And so these two countries, which were by far the two most important, they had both German speakers and non-German speakers, and non-German speakers were not in the empire. At this point, basically.

Joe: Austria had like Hungary and Romania and other bits, including Venice. Prussia had Poland and Kaliningrad. You know where that is?

Abram: Yep.

Marco: Wow.

Joe: What was it called at the time?

Abram: I don't know.

Joe: Königsberg.

Marco: Königsberg. But I'm already astonished that you know where it is. Yeah, really good, really good. Right now, where is it then? In which country?

Abram: Russia.

Marco: In Russia, indeed. Changed hands many times.

Joe: We would need a Venn diagram to understand all this, but it's a little bit like there were two large nations fighting for control over the smaller German-speaking parts. You got that?

Abram: Okay.

Joe: And if we ever do a summer vacation, Abram, in Germany, I guess we'll have to do a German unification episode. Yeah.

Abram: Yeah.

Marco: And you have to do Bismarck, of course. So yeah, Cavour is the Italian Bismarck, basically.

Joe: Don't give him ideas.

Abram: What do you mean? Oh, we— well, let's do that next.

Joe: No, no, no. We're gonna go back to British prime ministers, I swear. At this point in our story, Italy is naturally going to try to align itself with Prussia. Remember, the enemy of Austria is my friend. Oh yes, La Marmora had met with Bismarck, and Bismarck will be the one that gets credit for German unification. Although there are some downsides to German nationalism that obviously will pop up later.

Marco: Uh, yeah, a little bit later.

Joe: By 1866, war between Prussia and Austria, it seemed inevitable. Italy had signed a treaty with Prussia to support them, and Austria even offered Venice outright if Italy would renounce Prussia. But at that point, it was too little and too late. On June 16th, 1866, Prussia attacked Austria. Italy declares war immediately after, and in European history, this is called the Austro-Prussian War. But it has a different name in Italian history. Do you want to guess what it is, Abram?

Abram: The Prussian-Austro War?

Joe: That's a good guess. It's called the Third War of Italian Independence. Probably has a much cooler name in Italian.

Marco: Or unification. The Third— La Terza Guerra d'Indipendenza. Independence. You see here already in the name the big role that Italy played because all the other European powers, they just ignore Italy and they just call it the Austro-Prussian War. So you already know it's like a spoiler for how it's gonna go.

Joe: Prime Minister La Marmora resigned so that he could lead the troops directly. They brought Prime Minister number 2 back as Prime Minister number 7. But honestly, Abram, La Marmora should have stayed in as prime minister because—

Marco: How many days was he undefeated, in your opinion, Abram?

Abram: Seven hours.

Joe: You know, it's a good guess, but only because we set you up for it. He was defeated in three days.

Marco: Yeah. Italy started this glorious military history as a unified country. It's going to go downhill from here.

Joe: This is why they call it the Austro-Prussian War instead of the Austro-Prussian Three Days of Italy War. Overall, Italy did badly in the war. The army wasn't unified. Their navy wasn't unified. The only person that comes out of this looking pretty good is Giuseppe Garibaldi. And of course he led an invasion to take Trento and he would've taken it too, but then Austria surrendered to Prussia and the war ended.

Marco: Yeah. And I can tell you one thing, that he received a telegram from the Italian army saying, you need to stop and retreat while he was about to conquer Trento. And he was really not happy. I was about to say pissed. Can I say pissed about it? So he only answered with one word. "I obey." Like in one word, showing how much he was unhappy about the situation. But Italy had been defeated also at sea in the first big battle on the Adriatic Sea between the two navies. It was really a disaster.

Joe: Italy succeeded in pretty much none of their military objectives, but still Austria lost.

Marco: Yeah.

Joe: And so Austria surrendered Venice to France and then France transferred it to Italy. And now Italy has Venice back.

Abram: Yeah, we went from Nice to Venice.

Marco: And they did that because they were absolutely trashed by the Prussians. So they had to do it because basically Prussia said, you have to do it because the Italians are our allies. So you give it to our allies. And by the way, the Austrians from this day henceforth, they really, really despised these Italians that lose wars and gain territories. They will be really mad at Italy when the time comes for the First World War. But that's another story.

Joe: There was a vote, a plebiscite, to bring Venice into the Kingdom of Italy. To this day, there are still factions in Venice that argue that that vote was illegitimate. And that Venice should have been returned as an independent republic, not as a part of Italy.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: The defeated Austrian Empire lost some of its territories, and it's actually gonna change its name.

Abram: To?

Joe: The Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Abram: Did Hungary decide to join?

Joe: Hungary was already a part of it, but instead of being, I guess, a lesser part, they made it a co-equal part. I'm sure that there's a really good reason for that.

Marco: Yeah, there is a reason. They basically said, either you make us co-partners in this thing, or we are going to rebel and go our own way. So which one do you choose? And the Austrian emperor said, okay, let's keep it together. I'll be king, emperor of two different kingdoms. Basically, this is going to be again, very important in the First World War because the two parts actually had to agree with each other to start the First World War, and Hungary was really punished at the end of the war, lost like half of its territory because all the other powers, they considered it as a co-belligerent with Austria.

Joe: Prussia is going to be the rising power over all of German-speaking Europe, and they form a new North German Confederation, and that's eventually going to become the German Empire. But not until this episode is over. Just keep in mind that's coming. So after the disastrous war, Prime Minister Ricasoli was also forced to resign. He was Prime Minister 2 and 7. So it somehow makes sense that he would be replaced with Prime Minister number 3, who is now also 8: Urbano Rattazzi.

Marco: Yeah. So all this ball of prime ministers may seem very confusing. Just so you know, it's like a feature of Italian politics still today. It's just very normal. Often politics stay more stable in reality, but they often change prime ministers. It's very recurrent things. Right now, the average of post-World War prime minister lifetime, like the government lasts around one year and a half.

Joe: I'm glad we're not trying to do a podcast about all the Italian prime ministers.

Marco: No, no, no, no. It would be a lot of episodes. Too many episodes.

Joe: We have enough episodes as it is.

Garibaldi vs Rome, Part 3

Abram: Garibaldi versus Rome, part 3.

Joe: You remember a while back, France had promised to withdraw their troops from Rome, and they did so December 15th, 1866. And Italy promised, pinky swear, not to invade if they would move their capital to Florence. Remember that? Well, it was a day for celebration, and even King Victor Emmanuel II stated, "Italy is at last free of all foreign domination!"

Abram: Yeah.

Marco: Yeah. And by the way, talking about Florence, you know, Florence up until this day had wonderful medieval walls, but they destroyed them to make it the capital of Italy. And it was the capital for only five years. Okay. Spoilers. Spoilers about that.

Joe: Of course, our friend Giuseppe Garibaldi, he never lets something like an announcement from the king get in the way of his chance to have an invasion. He immediately made arrangements to invade Rome again. With the French troops gone, Rome would be nearly defenseless. Stop me if you've heard this before: Prime Minister Rattazzi had Garibaldi arrested, and then his government collapsed because he arrested a hero of Italy.

Abram: Bye Garibaldi.

Joe: Luigi Federico Menabrea is now Prime Minister number 9.

Abram: Number 9.

Joe: He issues an official proclamation disavowing Garibaldi's actions, but they don't hold him, and Garibaldi's still free to do whatever he likes. In November 1867, Garibaldi gathered 4,000 men and entered the Papal States. He advanced, he repelled multiple skirmishes— one of my sources says ambushes— by the Papal troops despite his smaller numbers. But unfortunately, France more or less expected this to happen, and they had troops ready to come back and reoccupy Rome. And on November 3rd, French and Papal troops engaged Garibaldi's forces at the Battle of Mentana, and he is soundly defeated.

Marco: No.

Joe: So Rome is again under French control. Less than a year after Victor Emmanuel's happy announcement, foreign domination has once again returned to the Italian peninsula, and it would take a miracle to get the French to leave now.

Marco: Yeah.

Roman Miracle

Abram: Roman miracle.

Joe: I'm not going to claim to understand 19th century European politics and the personalities of leaders like Napoleon III and Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. They mattered a lot. It was an interpersonal conflict as much as it was an international one. And while Italy was delighted to work with Prussia in 1866, Prussia is now becoming a bigger and bigger threat. They're mopping up all of these small German states and their imperial aspirations are making other leaders of Europe very nervous.

Marco: Yeah.

Abram: Okay.

Marco: And Germany, by the way, Prussia is about to become Germany and like all suddenly becomes this— from being a nonentity to the strongest European country. So it's a big deal. What's about to happen.

Joe: Now that the question of Venice had been resolved, Italy actually started to do a secret three-way treaty between themselves, France, and Austria just to make a check on Prussia. Those negotiations failed, mostly because Italy wanted Rome to be disarmed again, but that they would even consider themselves close enough friends with Austria of all countries says a lot about the shifting loyalties of the period, especially as Prussia is just rising and rising and rising. Not that it mattered much. Bismarck later said, quote, "I did not doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before the construction of a united Germany could be realized." It's way too much to talk about here, but through a complex scheme that involved a mistranslated telegram, a dispute over the Spanish crown, and French citizens being propagandized and goaded into calling for blood, France declared war on Prussia.

Marco: Napoleon III, he really thought he was very intelligent and like his predecessor Napoleon I, but he really wasn't.

Joe: Despite technically being the aggressors, France was unprepared for the war. German forces were already ready while the French military had large numbers of troops stranded in places like Algiers. France expected that some of the southern German states like Bavaria and Baden would join them against what had once been a historic enemy, but Bismarck's propaganda and the promise of a unified empire was for many people too appealing.

Abram: Oh no.

Joe: So they declared war on France instead of with France.

Abram: Who?

Joe: Bavaria and Baden as part of this new German Confederation. So remember that they started a secret treaty between Italy and Austria, but it didn't come to anything. And so neither Italy nor Austria came to France's aid. In the history of warfare, I'm told that this is very important. The Prussian infantry no longer marched in columns, instead preferring to move in smaller squads. They would try to encircle the enemy. The French army had these amazing new mass-produced rifles that could fire faster and with better accuracy. But in the end, it came down to numbers. The Prussians had more soldiers and more soldiers ready. They had more allies. And in fact, in August 1870, France was so desperate for troops that they pulled out their troops from Rome. So they could no longer garrison Rome. They needed to take every possible soldier up into France to protect it.

Marco: ASAP.

Joe: By the end of August, there was no longer any French soldiers in Rome, and the end from there came quickly. On September 2nd, 1870, after a series of defeats, Napoleon III personally led his troops in the Battle of Sedan in northeastern France. The Prussian army surrounded the French and defeated them totally. Napoleon III was captured and the Second French Empire fell. In the days that followed, France would form the Third Republic and they tried to fight on, but the Prussians would even lay siege to Paris and starve it out until the French completely surrendered. In the days that followed, Prussia declared itself the German Empire. But we're not following that story. The French removal of troops from Rome was music to the ears of eager Italians that wanted to reclaim the city.

Abram: Of course.

Joe: So who do you think tried to reclaim the city?

Abram: Garibaldi.

Joe: No, it turns out that Garibaldi was up in Nice trying to prevent—

Abram: He went from Nice to Venice.

Joe: He was up in Nice defending it from being captured by the Germans. So the other guy, he was a little bit too busy to seize Rome this time. And so it was Italy itself that declared war on the Papal States, and they marched in. From September 9th to 20th, the Italian armies marched across the Papal States. They captured one town after another, usually without a fight. By the 19th, they'd arrived and taken up positions around Rome, with both infantry and artillery. And this, Abram, is where we get back to our Picture This moment: the bombardment of Rome and the final surrender of Pope Pius IX. It's not even a month later when Italy annexed Rome and declared it as their long-awaited capital. King Victor Emmanuel II had finally enacted the dream that Cavour had brought and built a unified Italy.

Marco: Hip hip! Yeah. And Italy gained the capital because France lost the war, basically, at the end.

Joe: Yes. It's like, we're abandoning Rome. Well, we'll take it. Thank you. This is not the end of our story. Abram has asked for one more. And in the near future, we're going to trace these events from Pope Pius IX's perspective. As he goes from ruler to prisoner in the Vatican.

Marco: Oh, that's a great story. You're going to love it.

Joe: With that, I think we've reached the end of our story. Italy has been unified. Rome is taken. Venice is taken.

Abram: We went from Nice to Venice.

Joe: And Marco, I just have to thank you so much for agreeing to join us and for having so much amazing commentary. It has been an absolute pleasure having the opportunity to do some podcasting with you. Thank you so much.

Marco: No, thanks to you. And I'm sorry I'm not as funny as Abram.

Abram: It's fine. I like when you come to our episodes though.

Joe: Yes. All right. Well, thank you again. Stay tuned for our next episode, which will hopefully be back on William Pitt. And all we have to do now is say goodnight, Abram.

Abram: Goodnight.

Marco: And buonanotte.

Bibliography

Abram: Bibliography.

Joe: First and foremost, I want to thank Marco again for coming to join us. We had so much fun with him, and I hope you enjoy this joint episode. If you speak Italian, please be sure to check out his podcast, Storia d'Italia. I've listened to a little bit of it, and it sounds fantastic, but I don't understand any of the words. I had many, many small sources this time, but I want to specifically call out The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society, and National Unification by Lucy Riall, published in 1994. I read it on the beach. It made it a lot better. Our editor is Palle Bo of radioguru.dk. He's an amazing editor and comes highly recommended. If you like what you heard, please support our podcast by rating and reviewing in your podcast app of choice. It helps others find our podcast and is sincerely appreciated. Abram does a little dance every time we get a review or a rating, so please, if you'd like Abram to dance, that's a great way to do it. We'll be back soon with William Pitt Part 2, and then expect our Vatican City special sometime after that. See you soon.

Abram: We went from Nice to Venice. Went from Nice to Venice. We stopped in Monaco, and then we went further. We went to Turin. We went to Milan. We went to Como. We went to Verona.

Joe: We went to lots of places.

Abram: We went from Nice to Venice.

Joe: Okay, Abram, that's enough.

Abram: Can you include that as like a bonus part at the end? Please. That can be wonderful.

Joe: I'll mention it to Palle.

Marco: Produced by radioguru.co.uk.

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