However, the argument that carries the greatest weight is that the individuals who led these revolts and were at the forefront of the revolutionary movements were not united themselves in how they wanted Italy to unite. Austria clearly had a central role in putting down many of the revolts and so played an important role in both the failure of the 1820-21 revolutions and the ones that took place between 1848-49. Prior to 1820, Italy was unsettled and highly divided with nationalists, liberals and extremists amongst the masses. As the hostility in Italy increased under Austrian rule, secret societies emerged such as ‘The Carbonari’ – which was particularly popular in Southern Italy. By 1815, the aims of these secret societies changed in the direction of driving out the Austrians and restoring old Monarchs.
In Piedmont, King Victor Emmanuel I returned and took on a reactionary policy; he even went as far as destroying roads and gaslights that Napoleon had put in place- he was very much regressive. This was similar to the situation in Naples and Sicily, as King Ferdinand restricted his people and slowly made the state more and more under developed as public work was stopped. In 1820, news of the Spanish revolution encouraged the people to take action in Naples. King Victor fled the country when some of the army took sides with the rebels such as General Pepe. A new government was then appointed and it seemed that the revolution was a success Over in Sicily, prisoners were released and offices were burned as there was a demand for constitution- finally the revolutionaries sent the Neapolitan governor home and took over the city.
By that time the political situation was chaotic, after the Paris conference very little beneficial resolutions were made for Italy. The next five governments were ineffective and couldn’t solve economic problems which were making peoples life poorer. The promise made people start supporting him, and his ideals of anti-communism and trade union power helped him because by that time there were a lot of strikes from this people and they had a lot of opponents. The church, big businesses, middle classes, and army were some of the strongest sectors of the society that supported him. He was seen as an applicator of law and order, which was a very important issue in that moment where strikes and social and politic conflict occurred.
Similarly, in Piedmont in 1821, where Charles Felix declared Charles Albert (the temporary monarch of Piedmont) a rebel and so exiled him to Tuscany and then appealed to Mettinich for help. This is also the case for, the Papal States and Parma and Modena and the fact that all the revolutions ended because of being crushed by Austria, shows that the role of Austria was the main cause of the failures of the revolutions. The strength of the Austrian army also contributed to the failure of many of the revolutions, such as in Naples in March 1921 where Mettinich sent the army to repress the rebels, and after less than a month had successfully restored the old regime. The efficiency of the army
Long running weaknesses within the original political system aided in developing support for Mussolini, along with his ability to change the party’s policies to accommodate all members of society. Although the war was important in allowing this rise in support for the PNF, it was not the only factor which played a part. After the land promised to Italy in the Treaty of London did not materialise, many Italians felt that their victory was one which had been ‘mutilated’. Orlando, Italy’s Prime Minister had failed to fight for the promised land during the signing of the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference, leaving Italy bitter towards its own government. Prominent socialist at the time D’Annunzio led some 2000 soldiers into the city of Fiume in defiance of the Italian Government.
Garibaldi was very much a reactionist rather than a clever politician; he relied on brute force and did not plan his actions very efficiently, but this did not make him a bad leader, his strategy in most cases was to deny the enemy a moment’s pause, and this enemy was a common enemy of many of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, Austria. Throughout the 19th Century Austria had been inhibiting the reality of a unified Italy as they quelled revolutions and halted protests with strength and political dominance throughout Europe. After a very strong campaign throughout the south of Sicily he moved up through Calabria and on the 7th of September 1860, he entered Naples which was the peninsulas largest city, he then proclaimed himself “Dictator of the Two Sicilies”. At first, Garibaldi was sympathetic to the aims of the
However, there were many people that were critical of Wolsey and believed he was arrogant. Overall I think sources 2 and 3 agree fairly strongly with source 1’s opinion of Wolsey. Source 1 talks about how Wolsey considered himself equal to king’s, showcasing his arrogance, backed up by when it says he was hostile to nobles and the public suggesting he thought he was above them. It then went on to talk about how he was hated by all people showing his unpopularity. However this source was written by Polydore Vergil, an Italian humanist who came to England and wrote the History of England, his analysis of Wolsey wasn’t very good as they’d had a personal feud due to Wolsey being jealous and Vergil spent a brief period in prison.
To what extent had the pressing political problems of the 1800s been solved by 1914? After Italy’s unification in 1870 there were immediate political issues facing the new united Italy that needed to be addressed. The government that was formed was incredibly unorganized and not many people knew who was in charge at times, not only this but many of the politicians in power were incredibly corrupt and would happily take bribes, launder money and other underhanded, dishonest actions which would have been frowned upon had people known. The new united Italy was a liberal state which was actually one of the first of its kind, the Liberals had managed to oust the ruling families of each individual state, the old aristocracy and most importantly the pope. However this “liberal” Italy was actually more conservative at heart, the country was a monarchy and not a republic.
Liberal Italy faced many problems in this period if it was from corruption in the government or catholic hostility. This showed that the government ( king ) was weak as political and religious opponents were ankle to challenge. The king had most of the power and was able to pass whatever law he wanted no matter how ridicules it was, Italy AT this time was meant to be liberated but with a king being able to do what he wanted it sounds very much like a dictatorship. The government also had substantial amounts of power but the problem was that they were elected by the king. This mean that the government mainly consisted of people with similar ideology as the king.
In fact, unemployment in Italy rose and economic situation worsened. Many of his economic policies failed because of the regime that was inefficient and corrupt. Although Mussolini failed in many aspects of his rule, he was more successful than Hitler with his religious policy after his agreement with the Pope in 1929. Mussolini was aware of the influence that the Church had on people. So with the Lateran Treaty in 1929 Italy recognized Vatican as a sovereign state, accepted the Catholicism as the official state religion and in return Pope recognized the kingdom of Italy.In Italy, monarchy still remained and though Mussolini ignored king Emmanuel, the king played a role in Mussolini's fall, when he was able to announce Mussolini's dismissal and order his arrest.