The main reasons I will be looking at for why the revolutions failed are The Pope’s Allocution, they didn’t have a common goal, France, lack of foreign support and also the power of Austria. With the appointment of the new Pope, Pope Pius X1 in 1846, the states of Italy believed they would have a better chance of unification. Pope Pius was the first liberal pope Italy had seen and he gained support by ending censorship, telling Austrians to leave a town in the Papal States and he also released 2000 political prisoners. These actions had Metternich scared. He even quoted ‘we were prepared for anything, except a liberal Pope.
Though the Italians had a victory at Vittorio Veneto in 1918, the psychological impact of Caporetto was huge. The retreat brought shame and humiliation to Italy. By the end of the war in 1918, 600,000 Italians were dead, 950,000 were wounded and 250,000 were crippled for life. The war cost more than the government had spent in the previous 50 years – and Italy had only been in the war three years. By 1918, the country was hit by very high inflation and unemployment was high.
Italy was defeated at Caporetto in 1917 but rallied to win the battle of Vittorio Veneto in 1918. Some 600,00 Italians died. Prominent in the war were the arditi - groups of commandos who found it especially difficult to settle down afterwards. At the Treaty of St Germain in 1919 the Italian leader Orlando did not receive what had been promised and many Italians felt humiliated as their country was left out of the big three. In March 1919 Benito Mussolini an ex-socialist journalist formed the Fascist party.
To what extent was Austria responsible for the failure of Italian revolutionaries in the years of 1820-1849? It can be argued that Austria was largely responsible for Italian revolutions failing between the years of 1820-1849. They were a dominant force within Italy and would not allow themselves to be overthrown. However it is clear that other factors also had a significant impact over the failure of Italian revolutionaries, such as the fragmentation within Italy at the time, the misguidance of the revolts, the Pope was withdrawing his support of the revolts and their figurehead Mazzini being in exile. Revolutions between 1820-1821, 1831-1832 and 1948-1949 were all ultimately overthrown to some extent by Austrian force.
Germans were forced to pay for various repairs across different country what inevitably caused damage to country’s economy. The instability across the nation has been consistently rising, and the ruling government had to resign. In Italy the dissatisfaction of the nation with the government has also been significant, especially taking into account the defeat at Ceporetto or the collapse of the economy, which over past years was based on manufacturing weapons and other equipment that was needed for participation in the war. Both in Italy and Germany people were desperate for a change, they needed economic growth and development. There were no jobs, poverty was spreading.
Italy had tried and failed to conquer Abyssinia in 1896. Italians also felt that they didn’t get their fair share of territory after World War I when the Treaty of Versailles (1919) made peace and decided who would rule Germany’s former colonies. The invasion of Abyssinia would make up for these disappointments. Abyssinia and the territories Italy already held in East Africa would join together to make a new Italian empire in the region. Abyssinia had the support of the League of Nations, but did not have an army
Austria declared war on Serbia, which provoked Russia to help the Serbians, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia and France, which triggered England to declare war on Germany. Hostilities promulgated to the European colonies in Africa, Asia and the Middle East as many other nations joined in the conflict. Another factor contributing to World War I was the economic competition and conflicts erupting from power struggles over the colonial empires that had been building up through the last decade. Britain and Germany were in a power struggle after the Industrial Revolution to ensure raw materials were utilized and produced for their particular needs. Many people in the region surmised it was only a matter of time before the two major powers had expanding confrontations regarding these raw materials and workers themselves.
One of the most important reasons as to why the early revolutions did not prove successful when uniting Italy was because each revolutionaries in the different states had different aims. There are many examples of this, e.g. in areas such as Naples, there were many financial difficulties after 1815. The Bourbon Monarchy had to pay for the Austrian occupations as well as reparations to Austria; moreover the treaty of Vienna meant that Ferdinand I had to pay for the compensation to the French viceroy which lead to cutbacks in the government spending. This undoubtedly led to widespread unhappiness in Naples.
By the time it came to 1918 food shortages had caused riots and discontent and the government was finding it difficult to keep the army supplied. Industrialists became independent on war time business and they severely struggled when the war came to an abrupt end in 1918. Due to the opposition from many neutralists the government operated through the use of emergency powers, where parliament played the role of simply rubber stamping legislation. The Italian socialists openly condemned the conflict as a capitalist or ‘bosses’ war. Italian politics was largely divided during war years.
When And Why Did The Second World War Turn Against Hitler And His Allies? In September 1939 the world descended into the most violent conflict in its history. This was as a result of many years of poverty stress and anger at other countries (from Germany). Hitler took this downfall of the country to become the prime minister, as he often said that if he became the leader of Germany he would sort the country of all its problems. Hitler then took away the “Power of the People” by replacing parliament with a self proclaimed dictatorship, which most Germans welcomed.