Major Obstacles To The Italian Unification

1675 Words7 Pages
1. What were the major obstacles to the Italian unification in the period 1815-70? How were these obstacles overcome? (1997) Italy after the Vienna Settlement was re-divided into 8 states. While with the influence of national idea , Italian want to join and unite together . During the process of unification, Italian face some obstacle, that is, both internal disunity and foreign threat. Nevertheless, with the planning by some national leaders and the grouth of national feeling, Italian can overcome the difficulties and tackle the obstacle. The tradition of localism and separatism is the first barrier to Italian unification.That is the ways of life between southern and northern part of Italy is greatly different. People's consciousness of a common nationality was little developed and there was no national flag and even in Italy, provinces are against provinces, towns against towns and man against man. For the geography point of view, there is many natural barriers particular mountain ranges, which hinder the unification. Also, there had been little co-operation between Italian states in the past, the states were used to a separate existence and had differnent interest and administrative organinzations. Economicaly, the lack of economic unity was also a barrier to real union. The advanced urban society of the North, with ita rich resources for futher develpoment, compared to the poor, backward and peasant society of the South. As well as this, particularist feeling was strong in most of the ancient division of Italy and it is was difficult to see where acceptable leadership would come from in a movement for unity. Besides, the opposition of the state ruler and their autocratic rule also be the barrier of unification. Italy, in fact, was very backward at that time, especially in Papal States and the two-sicillies. After the Vienna settlemant in 1815, Powers
Open Document