How Far Do You Agree That the Failure of the 1820-1 and the 1831-2 Revolutions Were Due to Lack of Popular Support?

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How far do you agree that the failure of the 1820-1 and the 1831-2 revolutions were due to lack of popular support? Both of the early Italian revolutions for the start of the unification of Italy did not live up to the plans and expectations the revolutionaries had. Although ideas seemed effective whilst planning, in practice however it didn’t live up to the potential they would have liked. A big factor was lack of popular support; however the strength of Austria, no outside help and lack of unity also play a major role in the failure to these revolutions. The main reason why there was so much lack of popular support was due to the fact that the revolutionaries did not appeal to a wide number of people. The Liberals in particular did not in any case wish to involve peasants as politics for them was a middle class affair. This is because revolutionary leaders did not want poorly educated people to join the revolutions as they feared that allowing them would eventually lead to rule by mob. Not surprisingly, therefor, ordinary people often eagerly welcomed back their former rulers because middle-class revolutionaries did not want their involvement in politics. They were also inexperienced, weak and lacking in resources, particularly military ones. Moreover, there was also a lack of outside support. Following the success of the French Revolution, Italy had thought they would gain support from France as they were going through similar situation as France once had. However, France did not want to get involved with any of Italy’s affairs because of the past confrontations and involvement regarding Napoleon and Italy. They also did not have support from Britain as they also did not want to get involved in Italy’s revolution as Britain would not gain anything from it. Therefor this was a major disadvantage towards Italy as the revolutionaries would only
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