Episode 64 – The Reich and the Risorgimento

Hello, and welcome to Relevant History! I’m Dan Toler. This is the first in a multi-episode arc covering the period of Italian and German Unification in the middle of the 1800s. If you want to support the show, please share it with your friends, or consider signing up for a Patreon membership, which costs only $1 a month.

Most of what we’ve covered so far in this season of Relevant History has been the backstory of nationalism. And by nationalism, I mean the idea that the state should represent its people rather than a particular family, institution, or ruling class. This idea first fully manifested itself under the French Revolution, and was then spread around Europe like an intellectual epidemic during Napoleon’s conquests. From 1799 to 1815, Napoleonic armies traveled around the continent, bringing not just the potential for violence but also the idea that your country, too, could become a nation-state. Don’t fight for your Emperor like some slavish Russian. Fight for your nation and your people. In 1815, Napoleon’s armies are defeated for good and he’s sent into exile, but the idea of nationalism that those armies brought with them remains fixed in the public consciousness. And like any powerful idea, this idea of nationalism is going to have an impact on those societies, long after Napoleon is dead and buried.

        -The 19th century is generally known as a peaceful one in Europe. From the fall of Napoleon in 1815 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, there is not a single general European war. But the absence of wide-scale conflict is not the same as total peace and harmony. Far from being this placid, boring time, the 1800s are a turbulent period, particularly in Central Europe, where so much of the Napoleonic Wars had raged. And by “Central Europe,” I mean everything in the middle of Europe along an East-West axis, from the German Baltic coast in the north all the way down through Italy in the south.

        -Beyond the influence of Napoleon’s armies, there’s another reason that Central Europe is fertile ground for nationalism. In much of Europe, the old dynastic monarchies have fallen or been modified into what we would recognize as modern nation-states. France is French, its culture dominated mostly by Paris. Spain is Spanish, Sweden is Swedish, and even autocratic Russia is undeniably dominated by the cultural magnetism of the Tsarist court in St. Petersburg. But in the early and middle 19th century, for the people in Central Europe, the political map bears little resemblance to the map of cultural or ethno-linguistic identity. Today, I want to talk about the two major countries that dominate this region – Germany and Italy, which aren’t even countries when Europe gets carved up after the fall of Napoleon. By the late 1800s, both countries will be major players in European politics, and the rise of Germany in particular will create the conditions for not one but two world wars.

        -Here are the stories of Italian and German Unification, told in parallel, and there are a few reasons I want to talk about the subjects this way instead of tackling them one at a time. First off, both Italy and Germany are in similar situations in the middle of the 1800s. When the victorious allies agreed on a post-Napoleonic European order at the Congress of Vienna, both of these regions are left intentionally divided. In Germany, there are the 38 states of the German Confederation. In Italy, there aren’t that many states, but there are a handful including Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, and the still-relevant Papal States. Germany has never been united in the proper political sense, and Italy hasn’t been united since the Roman Empire. But cultural, historical, and linguistic ties have combined to create a nascent sense of national identity in both regions.

        -Another thing Germany and Italy have in common is that both regions serve as playgrounds for more powerful neighbors. The main reason Germany remains divided after Napoleon is that there are two major German powers – Prussia in the north and Austria in the south – and neither one wants the other to grow or gain territory.

        -Austria itself is important to both Italian and German Unification, because the Habsburg dynasty that controls Austria still controls a bunch of small statelets both in Italy and Germany, and obviously if the Italian and German statelets merge into new nation-states, then the Habsburgs are going to lose all that land. This process will for the last time pit the old European feudal-dynastic system against the newer nationalist system. Because Austria-Hungary is a dynastic empire ruled by right of ancient claims to land ownership, the idea of national sovereignty is antithetical to its entire political system. You can have a king who rules because the land is his, or you can have a government – even a monarchical government – which rules in the name of the nation. You can’t have a national government operated by the same guy who claims sovereignty over other nations. It is, to say the least, a conflict of interest. So while the idea of nationalism is a unifying force for Germany and Italy, it’s a source of division in the Austrian Empire.

        -For these reasons, both Italian and German unification are strongly influenced by events in Austria as well as elsewhere in Europe. The two stories are inextricably linked, and that’s why I’ve chosen to tell them together.

The early portion of the 19th century is a time of contradictions in Europe. On the political front, there’s little appetite for major, revolutionary change. Most Europeans are still having nightmares about the Napoleonic Wars, which stuck in the popular imagination the same way the World Wars stuck in the popular imaginations of those who were around to experience them. Only people who are totally insane are willing to risk a repeat, so politics live within a fairly narrow Overton window, with radicals on both the left and the right kept well away from positions of power. This Overton window is what we today would call center-left. Most politicians in most European countries favor civil liberties for the citizenry, regulated capitalist economies, and science-based public policies.

        -At the same time, most politicians in most countries are drawn from a combination of the old noble class and the up-and-coming bourgeois class, or upper-middle class, which at the time consists mostly of professionals like lawyers and physicians. These are highly-educated men who might advocate for this or that liberal public policy, but who are deeply invested in the society and not likely to rock the boat in any serious way. They’re certainly not on board with barricading the streets or erecting any guillotines in the public square.

-This environment leads to some really weird political ideologies that don’t make sense to us today. For example, in 1848, the Communist Manifesto is published, and while Communism will remain a fringe ideology for several years, the ideas of Communism start to circulate in intellectual circles, which means a lot of the social elites are exposed to these ideas before the general public has ever heard of Marx. And you end up with some early socialists who are also constitutional monarchists. They want to redistribute society’s wealth, and Emperor Ferdinand is just the man for the job! So even the big pro-labor activists aren’t calling for any kind of republic, because that’s how you get a Napoleon, and nobody wants to deal with a Napoleon.

-But revolutionary change doesn’t always spring from some political theory. More often than not, people turn to revolution when some aspect of the old system becomes obsolete due to social or economic changes, and Europe is dealing with both. On the social side, there’s been massive growth in the European population. On the economic side, the early industrial revolution is beginning to upend the old economies of local artisans in favor of newer economies of mass-production.

-The surge in population growth is most visible in Europe’s most advanced country, Great Britain, which grows from about 10.5 million people in the 1801 census to more than 27 million in the 1851 census. Growth in Germany is harder to track during this period because the region is divided between so many smaller statelets and there’s no big centrally-administered census. Still, population in the territory of modern-day Germany grows from about 18 million in the year 1800 to more than 33 million in the year 1850. The situation in Italy is even harder to track and growth appears to be more modest, but the population still seems to grow from around 19 million in the year 1800 to more than 24 million in 1850.

-This massive population growth actually begins way back in 1750, and continues for about 100 years, with only a slight downtick during the Napoleonic Wars. It’s driven by a number of factors, including improved sanitation, the widespread availability of a smallpox vaccine, and the first large-scale construction of modern hospitals. Infant mortality in particular goes into a steep decline, which means a whole lot more people and a much larger working population. This has a positive-feedback effect, with a larger working population driving increased economic growth, which creates the opportunities for more people to get married and start families, and it’s no coincidence that Europe in the early- to mid-1800s sees some of the highest marriage rates in history.

-People are better off financially than ever before and they’re optimistic about the future, but the economic gains aren’t distributed equally. As is usually the case, there are winners and losers, and for the European poor, the middle of the 19th century is a rough time to be alive. See, despite all this population growth and the growth of the economy due to industrialization, people are still using more or less the same farming technology they’ve been using for centuries. The seed drill was invented back in 1701 and the threshing machine started to see deployment in the 1790s, but the mechanical reaper won’t be invented until 1831, and won’t begin to see widespread use until the late 1840s. The steam-powered plow won’t be practical for most farmers until the 1870s. So we have a whole lot more people than there used to be, but because agricultural technology is lagging behind there’s proportionately far less food, which means food is really expensive and the poor are starting to feel the pinch. People aren’t starving yet, but society is headed in that direction. In 1798, English economist Thomas Malthus would even suggest that society was going to breed its way directly into a mass starvation, a theoretical event that we today call a Malthusian crisis. Again, Europe will eventually use technology to avoid this fate, but it either hasn’t been invented or hasn’t been deployed yet.

-Now, the period I’m talking about, again roughly the first half of the 19th century, is really the first half of the industrial revolution. It’s not as if Europe has been completely transformed into a mechanized, Victorian world with trains and factories everywhere. This is a transitional period, and some areas are industrializing faster than others. I pulled the following numbers from The Transformation of the World, A Global History of the Nineteenth Century, written by German historian Jürgen Osterhammel, and all of these numbers are normalized for 1990 US dollars. In highly-developed Britain, the GDP per capita grows from $1,700 in the year 1820 to $3,200 in the year 1870. In France, it grows from $1,200 to $1,900. In Germany, it grows from $1,000 to $1,800. So big growth all over Europe, right?

-The problem is that this growth is concentrated in certain areas. For instance, French industrialization mostly takes place in the Loire valley in the southeast and Alsace in the northeast, both of which are far from Paris. Similarly, much of German industrialization occurs in the Ruhr valley, well to the west of Berlin. In Britain, meanwhile, most early industry crops up around Manchester, way north of London. What all of these industrializing regions have in common is easy access to coal, which can easily be transported by canals or railways to nearby factories. Along the same lines, you aren’t starting to see any large-scale adoption of passenger railways yet. With a few exceptions, railroads are industrial machines, and you’re far more likely to find one in an industrial center like Liverpool or Essen than you are in London or Berlin.

-This growth in cities that are traditionally out-of-the-way has created major shifts in population, similar to those we’ve experienced in many parts of the post-industrial west. Capital cities, often with little access to coal to fuel their industries, grow less economically important, and manufacturing centers see a corresponding growth in importance. Life has remained good for the old nobility, and the new bourgeoisie class are better off than ever. The rise of industry has also given birth to two new types of people: the capitalist with his investment money, and the factory worker who has left the farm behind for slightly higher pay in the city. The losers in all this are the old artisans and manual laborers from the old major cities. With the advent of industry, many of them are becoming economically irrelevant, with few industrial work opportunities in their area, few land ownership opportunities in industrializing areas, and skyrocketing food prices. In a word, many European people are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and will increasingly support a revolution if it offers them a way out of their jam. That’s just how things are. Political leaders are ill-equipped to deal with the problem, because the problem is being caused by social and economic changes that have nothing to do with politics or the government.

So in most of Europe, you have an elite ruling class that views the issues of the day through a fairly narrow Overton window. The economy is great on the surface, but underneath that placid surface lies a deep reservoir of people who are poor, hungry, and have no voice. Like most politicians, European politicians of the 19th century are focused on the last threat. Today, 79 years after World War II, world leaders still base much of their policy on preventing the rise of another Hitler. In the 19th century, everyone wants to prevent a Napoleon, which means no republican government and no radical change – even at a time when radical change is needed. This is a recipe for political violence, and the first wave of violence washes over Europe in the year 1830 – only 15 years after the fall of Napoleon.

        -Believe it or not, the violence actually breaks out in France, with something called the July Revolution, and even though we’re talking about Italy and Germany today, we need to at least get a quick summary of what’s going on in France if the rest of the story is going to make sense.

        -After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, the French Bourbon monarchy had been restored under Louis XVI’s younger brother, Louis XVIII. Louis XVIII was a conservative monarch, but not a reactionary. By which I mean that while he favored more conservative policies, he didn’t want to roll back all the French Revolution’s reforms, just a lot of them. For example, under the restored Bourbon monarchy, France would continue to use a standardized system of weights and measures, peasants would be free from mandatory labor, citizens would have civil rights, Protestants would have freedom of worship, and there would be a public, state-funded school system. There would even be an elected legislature, although both its powers and the right to vote would be strictly limited. All of these things were creations of the French Revolution. And Louis XVIII was just fine with this. Early in his reign, in 1816, he would actually dissolve his government for being too reactionary, and call for new elections to select a more moderate national leadership.

        -But in 1824, only nine years into his reign, Louis XVIII would die without having produced an heir. Instead, he would be replaced by his younger brother Charles X. Charles was more of a reactionary, and would quickly pass a number of unpopular laws. As soon as 1826, he would threaten to shut down liberal newspapers that were opposed to his new inheritance laws. If that’s not enough, that same year brought new bad news that wasn’t Charles’ fault. The British economy, the largest in Europe by far, had just gone into a depression, and the effects would now hit the French economy. That year, future French President Adolphe Thiers would write:

        “The English, who had by their considerable purchases given great impetus to our manufactures, suddenly withdrew. Thus all Normandy, Picardy, and Flanders were dropped into dreadful suffering; last winter one even saw the beginnings of trouble among the workers of Rouen. Everywhere there were the cries of unemployment. Though few demonstrable losses can be seen in any branch of commerce, the single evil is to be found in the reign of extreme doubt for the future. The great bankers, hit by the crisis, have been the first to pull in their capital and the first to tighten up credit which they extend to business and industry. Business has stopped shipping and the manufacturers have shut down production. The dislocations go on down; there is no bankruptcy, but there is annoyance, malaise, and disquiet.”

        -In this atmosphere of malaise, Charles X’s government would lose the election of 1827, but in the multi-sided environment of French politics, those elections would elect no clear majority, leading to a period of divided government with lots of infighting and not a lot of actual governing. But in 1829, Charles would be able to maneuver his chosen candidate, a reactionary named Jules de Polignac, into the position of Prime Minister. In March of 1830, the legislature would pass a motion of no confidence in Polignac’s government, and there would be a new round of elections.

-Leading up to the summer of 1830, Charles X would do a couple of things to increase his chances. First, he would have his bureaucrats gerrymander the French legislative districts to maximize his chances of winning a reactionary majority. Next, he would stoke French national pride by leading a successful military invasion. So, in a three-week period ending on July 5th 1830, the French army would conquer the territory of Algiers in North Africa, winning an easy victory and setting the stage for the conquest of the rest of Algeria. In the wake of all this, Charles’ reactionary party would win a narrow victory in the election on July 19th 1830. Unwilling to accept a narrow majority that could turn to a liberal majority if a few members switched sides, Charles would issue a series of proclamations that are collectively known as the July Ordinances. He dissolved the government, severely restricted the voting rolls to eliminate middle-class voters, and also eliminated the press freedom that Charles couldn’t stand.

-Instead of strengthening his government, Charles’ July Ordinances would doom it. When police started showing up at liberal newspaper publishers to smash their equipment, they faced mobs, and those mobs began calling for the end of the Bourbons. Long story short, the mob would soon overrun most of Paris, including sites that will be familiar to anyone who listened to my series on the French Revolution, like the Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville. On July 29th, a group of liberal and center-right legislators would establish a provisional government.  A few days later, on August 2nd, Charles X would formally abdicate and go into exile.

-He would be replaced by his cousin, Louis-Philippe, the heir to the House of Orleans, which is a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. Louis-Philippe is the son of Philippe Egalite, a prince who had been a leading figure in the French Revolution before the radical revolutionaries beheaded him during the Reign of Terror. Having lived most of his life in exile, Louis-Philippe brings a unique perspective to the French Monarchy. On the one hand, he doesn’t seem to be particularly power-hungry, and with time spent in Switzerland, the United States, and Great Britain, he has plenty of experience in the wider world. On the other hand, his time abroad has led him to believe that France must industrialize, so he adopts a set of business-friendly policies which, if we’re being honest, are probably exactly what France needs right now, but which please neither the working poor nor the old aristocratic upper class, so he’s not a particularly popular king.

-Louis-Philippe’s unpopularity will become important later. What’s important now is that French populist fervor is once again on the rise, and just as the original French Revolution had spread its influence around Europe, the Revolution of 1830 will trigger aftershocks throughout the old Napoleonic Empire.

Such is the case in Italy, where Napoleon had ruled directly or indirectly for most of his time as Emperor of the French. In most of Italy, Napoleon had created puppet states that were nominally independent but were actually extensions of the French Empire, and the most powerful of these puppet states was the Kingdom of Naples, which had been ruled by one of Napoleon’s greatest marshals, Joachim Murat. Following Napoleon’s fall, the victorious allies had also dismantled the various Italian puppet states, and Murat’s kingdom was folded into the new Kingdom of Two Sicilies, which included both the southern half of the boot of Italy and the island of Sicily. This new kingdom is to be ruled by King Ferdinand I, who had been king of the separate kingdoms of Sicily and Naples before the Napoleonic wars. So, same ruler, but both his old kingdoms are combined into one. Oh, and by the way, this guy Ferdinand I is a descendant of the Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon, which makes him a distant cousin of French kings Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis-Philippe. But don’t let that fool you – the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is very much in the Austrian camp when it comes to foreign policy. Despite being related to the French royal house, Ferdinand I is all too keenly aware of the recent French occupation of his country, so it makes sense for him to look to Austria for protection.

        -Now, at least some percentage of Italians have always been upset about being ruled by one foreign kingdom or another. Naples has been ruled by foreigners for most of its existence, whether those foreigners are from Spain or France or wherever. But after being conquered by Napoleon, the Neapolitan independence movement had grown exponentially, made only worse by the restoration of a Bourbon king. And not only is King Ferdinand I a Bourbon, but he’s in Austria’s pocket. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich had done his level best to restore Europe to the pre-Napoleonic status quo, and he’s the guy who had put Ferdinand I back on his throne, and Ferdinand I even ends up with an Austrian prince as his army’s commander-in-chief. So Naples is very much an Austrian playground after 1815, which lends even more impetus to the local independence movement.

        -If you’re into conspiracy theories or secret societies or any kind of weird history, this is where the story starts to get juicy. Even if you’re not into any of those things, you’ve almost certainly heard of the Freemasons, a loose collection of secret societies whose members include most influential men in Europe at this time. Well, there’s another secret society – or collection of secret societies – that appears around this time, and they’re called the Carbonari, which is Italian for “charcoal burners.” The roots of the Carbonari are controversial. Some people think they were originally Freemasons because they use a lot of the same occult imagery. Others think they’re an entirely separate set of organizations that simply co-opt the masonic imagery that educated European men would already have been familiar with at the time. They use images like the all-seeing eye and the pentagram, and if you’re a high-enough level mason you even get to start out as a full member of the Carbonari without going through the usual year-long probationary period. Regardless, the Carbonari start to appear in the historical record during the Napoleonic wars, mostly centered in Italy, both in the occupied Papal States and in Joachim Murat’s Kingdom of Naples.

        -One thing that separates the Carbonari from the Freemasons is that the Carbonari are explicitly political. The masons are founded on Enlightenment principles, but their organizations have never come out and openly endorsed this or that political candidate, for example. That’s why I never talked about them during the French Revolution episodes, because there are Freemasons on every side of that revolution from the radical Robespierre to the moderate Lafayette to some of the influential ultra-royalists. Any conspiracy theory that says “the masons won the French Revolution” falls flat the moment you account for the fact that many Freemasons lost the French Revolution and their lives along with it. The Carbonari, on the other hand, are much more interesting to me from the conspiracy theory angle because they have an explicit political goal. They’re dedicated to the establishment of more liberal governments, whether those be constitutional monarchies or full-on republics. And they’re willing to engage in political violence if they think that’s what’s necessary to get the job done.

        -The first wave of violence would break out in 1820, following the success of a liberal military coup in Spain that we’re not going to get into. In Italy, the revolution would bear its first fruit in Naples and Sicily. Thanks to the Carbonari’s widespread presence among the elite, the Neapolitan rebels have real military leadership, a general named Guglielmo Pepe, and he forces King Ferdinand to accept a constitutional monarchy. A similar revolution breaks out in the Northern Italian state of Piedmont, which is roughly the area around Genoa and Turin.

        -Piedmont is another one of those Austrian-dominated areas of Italy, and it’s home to one of the most backward-looking regimes of the post-Napoleonic era. In his book The Making of Italy, 1796-1870, British historian Denis Mack Smith writes:

        “Piedmont had shown herself one of the most reactionary of all the Italian states. King Victor Emanuel I had returned in 1814 wearing his powdered peruque and pigtail as a sign that the clock was being put back to before 1789. He pursued no individual vendettas, but French appointees lost their jobs, Roman law came back to replace the Code Napoleon, feudal customs were restored, and the aristocracy got back their privileged position in the army (and their monopoly of boxes at the opera). Jews and Protestants lost the equality of treatment they had enjoyed from the French. There was even talk of destroying the fine ‘jacobin’ bridge which Napoleon had built at Turin over the Po, and of stopping traffic on his new-fangled road over the Mont Cenis. Half a dozen internal customs barriers were also restored to cut off different parts of the kingdom from each other.

        “Dissatisfaction with this took many forms. In Genoa and Savoy, regional movements of protest began to take shape against the unenlightened police rule of Piedmont. Some democratic and carbonarist elements were present in the army. Other secret societies, notably the federati and adelfi, were fashionable among some elements of the Piedmontese aristocracy; these were generally hostile to anything so democratic as the Spanish constitution, but they were anxious to obtain liberal reforms, and some of them hoped to persuade the king to defy Austria and annex Lombardy. News of the constitutional movements in Spain and Naples reinforced the wish for change. At one point the students took over the university and had to be dispersed by a saber charge.

        “Santorre di Santarosa, an officer in the guards, was the leader of a small group who were ready to use force. He tried, but failed, to persuade Caesare Balbo and his other aristocratic friends to make a common front with more democratic elements and so use the prevalent discontent to obtain positive reforms. From Charles Albert, a cousin of the King, some encouragement was received for a revolutionary plot. In March 1821, army units took over Alessandria and marched on Turin. The king abidcted, appointing Charles Albert as temporary regent, and the latter then formally introduced the Spanish constitution. But many of the federati strongly disliked this, and the division proved fatal. Ordinary citizens seemed indifferent, and the army commanders quickly turned against Santarosa when the soldiers claimed to elect their officers and voted themselves more pay and rations. Charles Albert saw what was happening and decided to betray his friends. The new king, Charles Felix, then… asked for Austrian soldiers to enter Piedmont and suppress the revolution. Santarosa fought courageously, but in a skirmish at Novara the royalists and Austrians were easily victorious.”

        -So, to simplify what Denis Mack Smith is saying, the Piedmontese rebels, backed by the Carbonari, overthrow their king, Victor Emmanuel I, and he appoints a cousin of his, a guy named Charles Albert who will become very important later, as temporary regent. Charles Albert goes full-on enlightened monarch and gives the liberals everything short of a full-on republic, but some radicals in the army start demanding more pay and talking about a military government, so the center-left decides they’ve had enough revolution and people ask Charles Albert to cool it, so he leaves the country and calls in Victor Emmanuel’s younger brother Charles Felix, who gets the Austrians to intervene and preserve his throne. Oh, and around the same time, the Austrian army also intervenes in Naples and restores Ferdinand I to his throne. To sum this all up in one sentence, the 1820 Italian insurrections fail spectacularly because other than the fact that they’re tired of being Austrian puppets, the rebels don’t actually agree on much politically.

What the 1820 Italian insurrections do achieve is the creation of a hard core of nationalist leaders who will spend the rest of their lives trying to kick out the Austrians and establish a single independent state across the Italian peninsula. Regardless, it will take all of the 1820s for the Carbonari and other secret societies to try their hand once more. Skipping over that entire decade because all of this is backstory, we come to 1830, when King Louis-Philippe takes over as King of France in the July Revolution and half of Europe decides that they, too, could use a little revolution. In Italy, the fires are personally stoked by Louis-Philippe himself, who decides to extend French influence to the area by declaring that if any Italian territories break away from Austria, the French Army will intervene to protect their independence. The first trouble breaks out in the city of Modena, which is located in north-central Italy, roughly equidistant between the French and Austrian borders. Not only is this a region where the French are itching to push out the Austrians, but Modena also has a particularly ambitious duke, a guy named Francis IV.

        -At first glance, Francis IV doesn’t look like a revolutionary. He looks like the kind of repressive tyrant who hangs would-be revolutionaries from the nearest lamppost, as he has already done this to a number of Carbonari in his territories. But Duke Francis IV is ambitious, and is not above changing his principles if it gains him access to more power. The Austrians are almost universally loathed, not just by the working classes, but even by the local Italian nobility, who are treated as if they’re a full rank lower when they visit the Austrian court. So when a duke like Francis IV goes to Vienna, he gets treated like a mere count. Most of all, the Carbonari are everywhere in Italy, indicating both widespread and growing support for Italian nationalism. So Francis decides to ride this rising nationalist tide. If Italy is unified, somebody is going to have to rule it, and why not an enlightened nobleman who supports unification from the very beginning? So he quietly announces that he’s no longer opposed to the project of revolution and Italian unification, and like flies to honey, Carbonari leaders begin gathering in Modena to launch their rebellion.

        -But once again, Austria gets involved. Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian Chancellor who had been Foreign Minister during Napoleon’s time, warns French King Louis-Philippe that if any Italian territories declare independence, the Austrian Empire will bring them back into the fold with whatever force is necessary, and if French troops are in the way, then Austria will fight France as well. Metternich has a long record of standing up to French leaders, and Louis-Philippe knows he isn’t bluffing. So he announces that he will no longer be supporting Italian independence. Duke Francis IV, in turn, decides that he’s too weak to fight the Austrians without French support, so he switches sides again and has all the Carbonari who have gathered in Modena arrested and hanged.

        -Like the uprisings of 1820, the Italian insurrections of 1830 are not limited to one place. There are additional uprisings in the Duchy of Parma, which is right next to Modena, as well as in the Papal States, which declare independence from the Pope over the course of 1830. In both cases, Austria responds forcefully. Over the course of 1831, Austrian troops sweep from the north of Italy to the south. First, they restore Duchess Marie Louise of Parma to her position. Not only is she one of Napoleon’s former wives, but she’s also the daughter of Austrian Emperor Francis I, so it’s logical that the Austrians are going to want her back in place. Then, Emperor Francis restores Pope Gregory XVI to control of the Papal States, before recalling his army and having established Austria not just as the undisputed overlord of Northern Italy, but also as the defender of the Papal States against both internal and external enemies.

        -The uprisings of 1830, like the uprisings of 1820, achieve nothing in the short term. Italy remains divided and is more under Austrian control than ever. But over the long term, the Carbonari will continue to gain recruits, and the failed revolutionaries of yesterday will inspire a new generation of Italian nationalists. One of these is a young lawyer and writer from Genoa named Giuseppe Mazzini. Mazzini is a member of the Carbonari, and is arrested in 1827 on suspicion of being a revolutionary, so he’s actually in prison during the 1830 uprisings, after which he is released in 1831 and goes into exile in Marseille, France, where there is a small but growing community of Italian revolutionaries-in-exile.

        -Later in life, Mazzini would write about his time as a young nationalist, both before and after his arrest:

        “While studying the events of 1820 and 1821, I had learned much of carbonarism, and I did not much admire the complex symbolism, the hierarchical mysteries, nor the political faith – or rather the absence of all political faith – I discovered in that institution. But I was at that time unable to attempt to form any association of my own; and in the Carbonari I found a body of men in whom – however inferior they were to the idea they represented – thought and action, faith and works, were identical. Here were men who, defying alike excommunication and capital punishment, had the persistent energy ever to persevere, and to weave a fresh web each time the old one was broken. And this was enough to induce me to join my name and my labors to theirs.

        “And now that my hair is grey, I still believe that next to the capacity of rightly leading, the greatest merit consists in knowing how and when to follow. I speak, of course, of following those who lead toward good. Those young men – too numerous in Italy, as elsewhere – who hold themselves aloof from all collective association or organized party, out of respect for their own individuality, are generally the first to succumb, and that in the most servile manner, to any strongly organized governing power. Reverence for righteous and true authority, freely organized and accepted, is the best safeguard against authority false or usurped. I therefore agreed to join the Carbonari.”

        -Mazzini goes on to talk about his particular group of Carbonari and how he ends up getting arrested. And he has this jailer who’s an old guy who fought for Napoleon’s side in the wars, and the guy is telling him that he’s misguided and that yes, Italian nationalism is good, but that revolution always ends with a guillotine and a reign of terror.

        -Mazzini talks about his fellow Carbonari on the outside, and how he manages to communicate with them. See, his letters are read by the prison warden, and he’s only allowed to communicate with his mom. So he spells out hidden messages inside of his letters to her. His friends on the outside are able to take the first letter of every other word to spell out a few important sentences, which are spelled out in Latin to make them even harder to find. Despite going through all this trouble, Giuseppe Mazzini is distressed by how much most of his brother Carbonari prefer play-acting as revolutionaries to actually doing anything to forge a united Italy. At one point, he says he tells one of his fellow prisoners that he has a way to talk to people on the outside, and asks if the other guy wants to communicate to anyone. The guy just responds with a ritual gesture raising Mazzini to the next level of Freemason. Basically, here’s an opportunity to work on the revolution in some real, tangible way, and this guy is more interested in his little secret society rituals.

        -So Mazzini decides to establish a new revolutionary society, one whose sole purpose will be the unification of the Italian peninsula under a single republican government. This organization – which Mazzini founds in 1831 in Marseille and which he names Young Italy – will serve as a metaphorical beacon of nationalism that inspires a broader European nationalist movement which Mazzini will found in 1834 and name Young Europe. These movements will almost immediately be banned, and in most parts of Italy, being a member of Young Italy or Young Europe is a capital offense. In some places, simply knowing a member and failing to report them is enough to get you executed. And the risk of getting caught is high. Metternich’s Austrian spies are everywhere in Italy, working hard to uproot revolutionary activity and maintain the status quo in the Italian peninsula – several states, all under the Austrian thumb.

        -Before we move on, I want to highlight the pathos of Mazzini’s vision for a new Italy. As is often the case with nationalist movements, the beating heart of Young Italy is an emotional appeal to something like the Platonic ideal of a particular national identity. Giuseppe Mazzini writes:

        “I saw regenerate Italy becoming at one bound the missionary of a religion of progress and fraternity, far grander and vaster than that she gave to humanity in the past.

        “The worship of Rome was a part of my being. The great Unity, the One Life of the world, had twice been elaborated within her walls. Other peoples – their brief mission fulfilled – disappeared forever. To none save to her had it been given twice to guide and direct the world. There, life was eternal, death unknown. There, upon the vestiges of an epoch of civilization anterior to the Grecian, which had had its seat in Italy, and which the historical science of the future will show to have had a far wider external influence than the learned of our own day imagine – the Rome of the Republic, concluded by the Caesars, had arisen to consign the former world to oblivion, and borne her eagles over the known world, carrying with them the idea of law, the source of liberty.

        “In later days, while men were mourning over her as a sepulcher of the living, she had again arisen, greater than before, and at once constituted herself, through her Popes – as venerable once as abject now – the accepted center of a new Unity, elevating the law from earth to heaven, and substituting to the idea of law an idea of duty – a duty common to all men, and therefore source of their equality.

        “Why should not a new Rome, a Rome of the Italian people – portents of whose coming I deemed I saw – arise to create a third and still vaster Unity; to link together and harmonize earth and heaven, law and duty; and utter, not to individuals but to peoples, the great word Association – to make known to free men and equal their mission here below?”

        -By the word “Association,” Giuseppe Mazzini is talking about free associations formed between revolutionaries. Secret societies like the Carbonari and Young Italy and Young Europe. Anyway, let’s leave Mazzini in Marseille for now, and turn our attention to Germany, because while all this revolutionary activity is going on in Italy, there’s plenty to talk about a little bit further north in Central Europe.

1830 is a busy year for most of Europe, not just France and Italy. On the heels of the French July Revolution, the Belgians, citizens of the old Austrian Netherlands, get in on the revolutionary game. The mostly-French-speaking and mostly-Catholic Belgians, disproportionately overtaxed and underrepresented in government, declare independence from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which is politically dominated by the mostly-Dutch-and-Walloon-speaking and mostly-Protestant north. After successfully expelling most of the Dutch army from the south of the country, the revolutionaries establish the modern-day Kingdom of Belgium as a constitutional monarchy, and it continues to exist into the 21st century. Meanwhile, over in Poland, some military officers launch a revolution against the Russian Tsar that kicks off rebellions throughout not just Poland but Lithuania, Belarus, and western Ukraine. The Polish rebellion is less successful than the Belgian one, and the Eastern European revolutionaries are quickly crushed by the Tsarist army. If that’s not enough, Portugal is going through a civil war between conservative and constitutional monarchists. Oh, and Switzerland also enacts a series of major constitutional reforms in response to a series of orderly, peaceful protests. Yay Switzerland! Another place that doesn’t devolve into full-on revolution in 1830? Germany.

Backing up a bit, the German experience in 1830 is a fascinating contrast to the Italian experience. Like Italy, Germany spent much of the early 1800s under Napoleon’s domination, after which they had returned to the domination of other powers. But unlike Italy, which is almost entirely dominated by Austria, Germany is split between Austrian and Prussian spheres of influence. To keep either side from getting too powerful, the bulk of Germany is once again left divided into a bunch of smaller states that fall into either the Austrian or Prussian camp. But instead of the 300-odd states that had existed in the pre-Napoleonic Holy Roman Empire, there are only the 38 states of the German Confederation. So, a simplified map, but still way more complex than the map of Italy. More to the point, the different histories of Italy and Germany generate different types of nationalism. In Italy, the nationalist movement hearkens back to the ancient days of Roman imperial glory, or even to the cultural flowering of the Italian Renaissance. Even though Italy hasn’t been politically united since the Roman Empire, Italians can still point to a unified history and a shared cultural heritage. Germany, on the other hand, has only recently been united under Napoleon, and ironically the only shared historical experience that’s common to all Germans at this time is the experience of marching to war with Napoleon’s army in Russia, then fighting against Napoleon later on. In other words, their shared national identity, such as it is, comes from fighting off one or the other foreign occupier.

        -This is why Germany stays quiet in 1830. There’s less of a nationalist movement to begin with. But for those German nationalists who do exist, the political situation is far more complicated than Italy’s. The “foreign occupier” in Italy’s case is the Austrian Empire, which is indisputably foreign to the Italians. In Germany’s case, the two “foreign occupiers” aren’t foreign at all. Austria and Prussia are both German states themselves. They’re just the most powerful states of the bunch. Not only that, but if you get rid of one of them – Austria or Prussia – the other one will only grow more powerful. So if you’re a German nationalist arguing why your particular state needs to throw off the Austrian yoke, you need to explain to people why being under the Prussian yoke would be even better, or vice-versa. Finally, German nationalism takes a particularly militaristic direction, because German nationalists first and foremost seek security. If you’ve followed my show for the past couple of years, there’s been all kinds of war in Germany for the past few hundred years. A lot of this comes down to Germany’s geography. When you’re right in the middle of the European map, it’s tough not to get sucked into wars because even if you’re not involved initially, you’re either adjacent to one of the combatants or you’re trading with one of them or one of them marches an army across your land and you end up getting sucked into the conflict. Given this history, it makes sense for Germans to want a strong military to keep external wars from spilling over into German territory. So once again, what you see in the various German states in the post-Napoleonic era isn’t so much a desire for local autonomy as a desire for stability. So long as Austria and Prussia are doing their jobs and keeping Germany internally peaceful.

        -However, Austria and Prussia themselves have different approaches towards this nascent German nationalism. Austria, under Chancellor Metternich’s direction, tends to oppose nationalist movements and tries to maintain Germany’s divided status quo. Prussia, led by weak king Friedrich Wilhelm III’s chief ministers Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August von Gneisenau, tends to try to co-opt nationalist movements for its own ends.

        -A good example of this is the Wartburg Festival, which takes place in October of 1817 in the city of Wartburg. The festival is held to celebrate not one but two major events in German history. First is the 300-year anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five theses to the cathedral door, and second is the three-year anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, when the allied armies decisively defeated Napoleon and turned the tide of the war. The Wartburg Festival is organized by student organizations – basically college fraternities – and is only attended by a few hundred people from around the various German states. At least, they come from the Prussian-dominated German states. Despite the fact that many students are calling for a united German government, the Prussian ministers don’t interfere with the festival, instead promoting it as an example of enlightened free speech. In Austrian-dominated German states, even news of the Wartburg Festival is suppressed. Metternich, the Foreign Minister at the time whose spies read every piece of mail that crosses the Austrian border, orders that any invitations to the festival are to be intercepted and burned. As a result, almost everybody who attends the Wartburg Festival is from the Prussian parts of Germany, and King Friedrich Wilhelm III scores a few points with German nationalists.

        -Two years later, in 1819, Metternich will go further. See, one of the major events at the Wartburg Festival had been a burning of books, and the students had symbolically torched a pile of books written by conservative authors. One of these authors is a guy named August von Kotzebue, and on March 23rd 1819, Kotzebue is stabbed to death in his own home in front of his four-year-old son, and the murderer is a liberal university student named Karl Ludwig Sand, who is a Waterloo veteran and suffers from what we today would call PTSD. Karl is also a member of one of the nationalist student fraternities and had attended the Wartburg Festival and the book burning. Immediately after killing August von Kotzebue, Karl Ludwig Sand supposedly notices Kotzebue’s young son off to the side watching his father bleed out, and Sand is immediately distressed and stabs himself, then runs out into the street and stabs himself again in an effort to commit suicide, and he bleeds a whole lot and passes out in the street, but he is arrested, stitched up, and recovers in time to be in good shape for his beheading in May of 1820.

        -Immediately upon August von Kotzebue’s death, Metternich puts his propaganda machine into high gear, painting German student organizations as gangs of dangerous thugs and von Kotzebue as a martyr for law and order. Now, I’ve briefly mentioned a couple of times that the 38 states of Germany are grouped into an organization called the German Confederation. This confederation isn’t a unitary state. It’s a military and foreign policy alliance, designed for the various members of the Confederation to enforce peace both inside and outside Germany. The German Confederation’s governing body is called the Bundesversammlung, or Federal Convention, which consists of one delegate from each of the German states, including Prussia and Austria. The Austrian delegate acts as President of the Federal Convention, but has no special voting power. Well, Metternich orders the Austrian delegate to introduce a series of ordinances called the Carlsbad Decrees, and he uses diplomatic pressure to coerce a majority of German states into voting for them. I was going to read the Carlsbad Decrees in full, but when I finally found an English translation of the complete unabridged decrees, it turns out that they’re very long and dry and boring with many paragraphs of 19th-century legalese, so let me sum up.

        -Basically, there are three decrees, the first of which is known as the University Law. The University Law requires all German states to appoint a political officer at every university in their territory, to ensure that nothing is being taught that would undermine the current political order. These political officers can remove professors who step out of line, and any such professor will be banned from teaching again anywhere in the German Confederation. Student fraternal organizations are banned, and students who join fraternal organizations anyway are to be expelled and banned from re-enrolling at any German university. The second of the Carlsbad Decrees is the Federal Press Law, which regulates any printed material of 20 pages or longer, so it includes not just books but also newspapers and magazines. Any such printed material now has to be approved by government censors before it can be published. Individual states are to ban not just publications that oppose the current political order, but publications that disparage other German member states. So if you’re not a fan of the King of Bavaria, you can’t just go into a neighboring German state and publish your anti-royalist pamphlets there. Moreover, the government reserves the right to ban not just individual issues of a newspaper or magazine, but to close the entire publication. In that case, the editor of the banned publication will be ineligible to work as an editor anywhere in Germany for the next five years. The third and final part of the Carlsbad Decrees orders an investigation into all revolutionary movements, and it isn’t all that important for our purposes.

-The Carlsbad Decrees do exactly what Metternich had designed them to do. They freeze German politics in place and prevent any serious disruption to the status quo. Over time, enforcement of the decrees will slacken, especially in states with more liberal leadership. But at least for the next couple of decades, there will be no serious movement for political nationalism in Germany, which explains why, when the rest of Europe is having its year of revolutions in 1830, Germany remains relatively calm.

Instead of expressing itself in the political realm, the German nationalist movement in the 1820s, ‘30s, and ‘40s expresses itself more so in the form of cultural growth. This period is known in Germany as the Vormarz, meaning “before March,” which refers to the uprisings of March 1848, which we’ll get to in a little bit. Anyway, the Vormarz serves as something of a cultural Renaissance, with the member states of the German Confederation beginning to forge a shared cultural identity. For example, there’s an explosion of great musical talents during the Vormarz. Ludwig van Beethoven is the most famous of the bunch, although to be fair he’s been active since the year 1800 and has been deaf since 1815. Even so, he composes some of his most well-regarded work in his final years, including his Ninth Symphony, which debuts in 1824. Beethoven’s Ninth is widely-regarded as one of the greatest musical masterpieces of all time, and is dedicated to none other than the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm III. Besides Beethoven, any list of active German composers during this time period reads like a “who’s who” of late classical and early romantic period music. Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, Johann Strauss, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Carl Maria von Weber are all active during the Vormarz, as is Johann Strauss I, the father of the far more famous Johann Strauss Jr.

        -In his book The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany 1780-1918, Vanderbilt university historian and former Harvard professor David Blackbourn writes about how the reorganization of Germany in 1815 has created a bunch of new states, and all these states are trying to establish some kind of legitimacy. And he gives us a great explanation of how this struggle for legitimacy actually feeds into the creation of German art and culture. Blackbourn writes:

        “On what basis did these sovereign states rest? All but four of them (the three Hanseatic cities, plus Frankfurt) were dynastic states. Five were monarchies (Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Hanover), the rest consisting of duchies, grand duchies and other principalities. We should not pass too lightly over this array of princes. Rulers aimed to rule... …they wanted to choose their own foreign policies and ministers. And most did not grant constitutions – not in 1815, anyway, or immediately afterwards. They maintained their courts, demanded personal oaths of fealty from their officers, and emphasized their legitimacy. These hereditary rulers expected deference, and often found it. Buttressed by the message of obedience to the ruler propagated by the churches, certainly in the early Restoration years, the prince still presented himself as a 'father of his people'. Carl Spitzweg's painting of The Visit of His Highness to a small principality in the 1830s is a sentimentalized but not inaccurate representation of this relationship. In Prussia, popular woodcuts and lithographs featuring royal portraits, coronations and funerals were mass-produced in Neuruppin, north of Berlin. Deference and sentimental attachment to the ruling house were strongest in smaller states and those least affected by the twenty-five-year territorial carousel. But what about the states that were quite new and artificial, like the Principality of Lichtenberg carved out for the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha around St Wendelan area seized from the Duke of Zweibrucken by France, held in trust by Bavaria in 1815, gifted by Prussia to Saxe-Coburg as a reward for military cooperation, then bought back by Prussia? And what of the old states with major new territorial acquisitions: 'new Bavaria', 'new Wurttemberg', the Prussian Rhine Province? After all, well over half the population in 'Restoration' Germany had new rulers. Here, historic loyalties were likely to present more of a problem.

“Where tradition did not exist, rulers tried to manufacture it. They were helped in this by the cult of monarchy among Romantic artists and intellectuals, with its emphasis on the 'historic' and its fondness for an (imaginary) stable past. An example would be the painters of the Nazarene School. The impulses within Romanticism, it is true, did not always sit comfortably with power. Celebrating ruins, losing oneself in Nature, or praising 'sincerity' above everything – all lent themselves to a variety of political conclusions… …But rulers had their own ways of making the past work for them. One was to project monarchical authority through ceremonial, display, statuary, and public buildings. Ludwig I of Bavaria was an adept: the extensive new buildings in Munich designed by Leo von Klenze, and monuments like the 'Hall of Fame' for Bavarian heroes, were intended to glorify the Wittelsbachs and establish the dynasty in the affections of the people. The great architect Friedrich Schinkel followed a similar programme in the Prussian capital… …Here… …the squares and octagons of neo-Classicism were intended to reflect royal majesty. The rather later obsession with medievalism and the neo-Gothic was also pressed into service. To celebrate the marriage of Wurttemberg's Crown Prince Karl to a Russian princess in 1846, local aristocrats dressed up as crusading knights and Saracens and staged a tourney in Stuttgart using original weapons, against a backdrop of palms and lemon trees specially imported for the occasion. If this was madness, there was method in it. No ruler better exemplified the trend than Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. Often dismissed as a medievalist crank, he actually had a shrewd idea of the need for loyalties to be constructed. At the 1842 inauguration of the newly completed neo-Gothic Cologne cathedral, which Friedrich Wilhelm claimed as a Hohenzollern deed, the king told Metternich that Prussia had no real historical basis. It was, he said, just a random collection of territories: a Prussian tradition would have to be created.”

-Now, I’ve focused a lot on cultural nationalism in Germany during the Vormarz, but it would be unfair to say that there’s no support for political nationalism. While the European revolutionary wars of 1830 don’t affect Germany directly, German writers and thinkers can’t help but be inspired by other people around Europe who are establishing their own nation-states. But Metternich’s censorship machine is still in full force, which makes it difficult – and dangerous – to publish anything approaching a call for German political nationalization. Instead, many of Germany’s most influential thinkers decide to meet in person.

-The time of the meeting is May 27th through 30th 1832, and the place is the Hambach Castle, located near the east bank of the Rhine River in a part of Germany known as the Circle of the Rhine. Hambach Castle isn’t chosen at random. See, this whole region of the Circle of the Rhine is a political anomaly within the German Confederation. During the days of the Holy Roman Empire, it had been part of a state called the Palatinate, and when Napoleon had conquered the Palatinate, he had given the people in the region a bunch of civil rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press. During the reorganization of Germany at the Congress of Vienna, the region had been absorbed into the Kingdom of Bavaria, and as one of the conditions for absorbing the Circle of the Rhine, the King of Bavaria had agreed to maintain their constitutionally-established civil rights within the new regime. These civil rights, known as the Rhenish Institutions, make the Circle of the Rhine a unique free speech zone that Metternich’s censorship laws cannot touch. As a result, many German political nationalists have settled there, along with refugees from the failed Polish revolution and other sundry European nationalists.

-Inside this special free speech zone, economic conditions aren’t great for the working class. Industrialization has improved the region’s productivity, but it’s put many local artisans out of work. Meanwhile, the farmers have suffered both from poor harvests and from poor markets. Thanks to steep customs barriers between different states of the German Confederation, it’s difficult for them to sell their regional products – mostly wine and tobacco – especially when they have to compete with trade from the British and French Empires. Poverty in the Circle of the Rhine is endemic, and when impoverished people start illegally harvesting free firewood from the state-owned forests, a practice known as Forstfrevel, the Bavarian government pursues criminal charges against literally thousands of people.

-All of this unpleasantness has made people receptive to the idea of a unified national government that can set things right. And in January of 1832, a bunch of Bavarian writers start a press organization that openly calls for German political nationalization. The Bavarian government immediately bans the press organization, and instead the same group of writers decide to organize a festival in the month of May at Hambach Castle. This festival, which has come to be known as the Hambacher Fest, is only a fig-leaf for a huge convention of German nationalist thinkers, and there’s nothing the Bavarian government can do about it. After all, there’s nothing illegal about holding a festival, and if a bunch of political activists just happen to show up at the same public event and having conversations and giving impromptu speeches on the street corners, what is the government going to do? Send in the military? This is a free speech zone, and all those angry workers and peasants won’t take kindly to a bunch of Bavarian soldiers trampling on their constitutional rights. So the Kingdom of Bavaria does nothing to interfere with the events at Hambach Castle.

-Some of the speakers talk about the horrible economic conditions in Germany, while others talk about how all the smaller German states are dominated by the Prussians and the Austrians, who are dismantling their age-old local institutions and political rights. At the end of one speech, thousands of people raise their hands and swear an oath:

“We swear to be a nation of true brothers, never to part in danger and in death. We swear we will be free as were our sires, and sooner die than live in slavery."

The Hambacher Fest represents the rebirth of German political nationalism as a socially acceptable idea, particularly among the people of the smaller states. There’s even a small nationalist uprising in Frankfurt in 1833, and by “small” I mean around 50 students form a mob and try to raid the German Confederation’s treasury before being arrested by the police and a few national guardsmen. As usual, the Austrians and Prussians will have radically different responses. The Austrian response under Metternich is the same as ever. Continue to censor the press and keep these dangerous ideas from spreading beyond a few annoying intellectuals. The Prussian response is to give the people enough of what they want that the Prussian monarchy comes out looking like the good guys. As I briefly mentioned, a lot of the economic trouble in the German Confederation is a result of customs barriers. See, back in the old days of the Holy Roman Empire, local lords and governments had raised most of their revenue by taxing cross-border trade. And with more than 300 statelets in the Empire, your goods may have had to cross multiple borders to get to their destination, which meant multiple rounds of taxation and sky-high prices for anything that couldn’t be obtained locally. Napoleon had done away with all this, but when the German Confederation emerged from the ashes of the Napoleonic Wars, so had the old customs barriers, and Germany’s burgeoning economy had slowed down significantly.

        -Now, I want to be clear here. It’s not as if nobody realized this was a bad idea until the Hambacher Fest. Way back in 1818, the Kingdom of Prussia had abolished internal tariffs between the Prussian crown lands and the dynastic lands of the Hohenzollern Dynasty, turning all of Prussia into a free trade zone and making it more like a modern country and less like a medieval kingdom. Then, during the 1820s, the Prussians had worked out free trade agreements with a couple of the smaller German states: Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. Together, Prussia and these smaller states form what’s called the Prussian Customs Union, or PCU for short.

        -Free trade benefits Prussia because Prussia is a larger state and can absorb a little competition from smaller neighbors in exchange for cheaper goods. Trade benefits the smaller PCU states as well because it gives them access to more goods, as well as to a market to sell whatever goods they produce locally. However, many of the mid-sized German states are opposed to a union that would put them at the mercy of the more powerful states. These mid-sized states decide to form their own customs union that will explicitly exclude both Austria and Prussia.

        -Now, things are about to get a little complicated, but I’ll try to keep things as short and sweet as possible. And don’t let all the acronyms make you go cross-eyed. I promise, none of this is going to be on the test. Due to internal bickering between various middle-sized German states, there actually end up being two customs unions founded as rivals to the PCU. First is the South German Customs Union, or SGCU, formed in January of 1828 between Bavaria and Wurttemberg. Next is the Central German Customs Union, or CGCU, formed in September of 1828 between the governments of Bremen, Brunswick, Frankfurt, Hanover, Hesse-Homburg, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, Oldenburg, Reuss-Greiz, Reuss-Gera, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Weimar, Saxony, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. Oh, and the middle of all that, in February of 1828, Prussia forms a new agreement with the Grand Duchy of Hesse, creating a new organization called the Prussian-Hessian Customs Union, or PHCU, which replaces the old PCU and includes the other old PCU states. So by the end of 1828, there are three free trade zones in Germany: the Prussian-dominated PHCU centered in northern Germany, the multi-lateral CGCU, sprawling across both central and northern Germany, and the smaller SGCU, centered in southern Germany.

        -Are you with me so far? Okay, so the SGCU only has two members, making it less of a real customs union and more of a bilateral agreement between Bavaria and Wurttemberg. So in 1829, to increase their power relative to the much-larger CGCU, the SGCU states come to an agreement with Prussia to allow customs-free trade between the SGCU and the PHCU. After this, in 1831, Hesse-Kassel and Saxony leave the CGCU and join the SGCU, by extension also joining the SGCU-PHCU free trade zone. After this, in 1833, just a year after the Hambacher Fest, the CGCU fractures, with nine of the remaining fifteen states breaking off to form yet another entity called the Customs and Trade Association of the Thuringian States, or CTATS. That same year, the members of CTATS, the SGCU, and the PHCU agree to form one customs union to rule them all: the German Customs Union, better known as the Zollverein.

        -The Zollverein treaty comes into effect on January 1st 1834, encompassing most of Germany with the exception of the few remaining CGCU states and of course Austria, which wants no part of any free trade system. It’s also worth noting that one of the first things the Zollverein does is perform a unified German census to make sure each member state shoulders its fair share of expenses and keeps its fair share of tax revenue. Over the next several years, one state after another will bleed off from the CGCU until it basically ceases to exist and by 1842, the Zollverein, this Prussian-dominated German customs union, encompasses more than half of the German Confederation. Outside the Zollverein is all the Austrian-owned German land, which basically exists within the Austrian Empire for customs purposes, as well as a handful of holdout states that refused to join the Zollverein. These are the Baltic German states of Brunswick, Hanover, Hesse, and Oldenburg, which form their own union, called simply the Tax Union, or Steuverein, which will remain separate for a little while yet.

So you’ve got economic nationalization and cultural nationalization, but not a whole lot of political nationalization going on in Germany during the Vormarz, which again is the period prior to the Revolutions of 1848. Even so, we’re talking about roughly three decades, so there’s going to be some political change along the way. The first major shift in German politics during the Vormarz is the death of Austrian Emperor Francis I in 1835. Francis I was the first Austrian Emperor and had been the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II before dissolving the HRE in 1806. So he’s been around for a while at this point and when his son Ferdinand I takes the throne, the Empire isn’t just losing a major source of stability, it’s taking a real downgrade in the quality of its head of state.

        -Ferdinand I has been unfortunate from before the day he was born. See, his mother, Maria Theresa of the Two Sicilies, is double first cousins with his father. Basically, they’re both grandchildren of Maria Theresa of Austria, and their other three grandparents are also the same. So instead of eight great-grandparents, Ferdinand I has four, because his maternal great-grandparents and paternal great-grandparents are the same people. To put it bluntly, he’s a prime example of Habsburg inbreeding.

        -Earlier historians portrayed Ferdinand I as mentally retarded because he spends most of his time away from the public eye and delegates all his duties, but that’s not exactly fair. Ferdinand I writes a diary as well as a number of other personal notes, and he seems to have a firm grasp on matters of state and a solid understanding of what’s going on with Austria’s European neighbors. People who meet with him also report that he has a quick sense of humor. The problem with Ferdinand I – the reason he’s not able to execute his duties as Emperor – is that he suffers from a severe case of epilepsy, and is known to have twenty or more seizures per day. He also has a speech impediment, as well as hydrocephaly, or a buildup of fluid in the brain. On his wedding night, when he and his bride try several times to consummate their marriage, he reportedly has five seizures. But despite the change in rule at the top, the Austrian Empire keeps chugging along without much change at all. That’s because Klemens von Metternich, who had been Foreign Minister since 1809 and now Chancellor since 1821, is basically running the Empire the same way it’s been run for a couple of decades. This is why even as the rest of Germany is trying to form an economic union, Austria is continuing with its customs barriers and its general policy of a divided Germany.

        -A few years after the death of Francis I and the ascension of Ferdinand I, in June of 1840, Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III would die, leaving the throne to his son Friedrich Wilhelm IV. 44-year-old Friedrich Wilhelm IV is something of a romantic, and as we heard a few minutes ago in the quote from David Blackbourn, he’s also an architecture enthusiast. In that quote, the new king is attending the 1842 inauguration of the Cologne Cathedral. This cathedral is without a doubt the most famous architectural work undertaken by Friedrich Wilhelm IV. I say “undertaken” because he doesn’t actually begin the project. See, the Cologne Cathedral started construction way back in the year 1248, but for various reasons the work was continuously interrupted until it was left off altogether in 1560. So by the 1840s, this cathedral has been sitting unfinished for 280 years, and Friedrich Wilhelm IV sees its completion as a good way to establish Prussian culture. It’s also a good way to unite the country in general. Ever since the wars of religion in the 15- and 1600s, Germany has been a mix of Protestants and Catholics. And while Friedrich Wilhelm IV and most of his court are Calvinists, the new King himself is also very sympathetic to Catholicism, particularly the cultural aspects of German Catholicism, most particularly German Catholic architecture. Given all this, any opportunity for the mostly-Protestant government to extend an olive branch to the Catholic Church is a desirable opportunity to bring Germans together. So in 1842, Friedrich Wilhelm IV personally establishes a civic fund to complete the Cologne Cathedral to its original medieval design. Ultimately, about one third of the cost is paid by the Prussian crown, while about two thirds is paid by literally thousands of public donations from Catholics and Protestants alike. Remarkably, the project will not be completed until 1880, and Friedrich Wilhelm IV will not live to see its completion. Nonetheless, the Cologne Cathedral is a German cultural masterpiece. Its twin Gothic spires stand 515 feet tall, making it the third-tallest church in the world, and it survives both world wars, although the windows and much of the façade are badly damaged by Allied bombers during World War II, and the building is not fully restored to its original state until 2005. The Cologne Cathedral has also been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1996, and if I ever have the opportunity to visit Germany, it’s on my short list of “must visit” locations.

        -Returning briefly to Friedrich Wilhelm IV – you know, the guy who becomes King of Prussia in 1840 – he’s also a bit of an odd duck from an ideological perspective. As a romantic, he looks back fondly on the days of the old feudal estates and a strictly hierarchical society. But he’s also a pragmatist, and he recognizes that his political ideals are out of step with the realities of the nineteenth century world. So instead, he pursues a policy of political moderation, with a loosening of press censorship, a mass amnesty for political prisoners, and various projects like the Cologne Cathedral to bridge the divide between Catholics and Protestants. All of this helps to create a shared Prussian identity with Friedrich Wilhelm IV not as an old feudal overlord but as a benevolent autocrat who provides for his people.

Before we return to events down in Italy, I want to talk about one other aspect of German nationalization, and that’s the literal nation-building that’s going on in many of the German states, which are either brand new or had been abolished during Napoleonic times. Kings, dukes, and other leaders have to rebuild their state apparatuses, often from scratch, and it’s not always an easy process. Government ministries have to be staffed. If you’re going to have something as basic as a post office, for example, just think of how many jobs you’re going to have to fill.

        -Quoting David Blackbourn again:

        “Bureaucracies were largely recruited on the basis of competitive examinations – in Bavaria, marks were scrutinized down to two decimal places. Edicts and decrees regularized responsibilities, promotions, disciplinary procedures and pensions. Systems varied from state to state between the hierarchical and the collegial (the latter based on collective responsibility at a given administrative level), but the emphasis everywhere was placed on uniformity of approach and working within fixed guidelines. The bureaucracy also embodied the ethos of competence, order, duty and hard work. If this sounds obvious to modern ears, we should remember that it was less so at the time: few of these attributes were apparent among those who passed for officials in, say, contemporary England or the Papal States… The collective identity within German bureaucracies included a lofty sense of responsibility, even arrogance. Administration was, so officials believed, disinterested: it transcended the divisions and conflicting egoisms in society; it stood for the 'general interest'. This claim enjoyed a good measure of support beyond the ranks of the bureaucracy, especially among the university-educated who shared the same background as senior officials. The philosopher Hegel, who believed that the world spirit had found true expression in the Prussian state, is only the most celebrated example. As a professor at the University of Berlin, he was himself an employee of that state.”

        -The problem that most of these German states run into is that it’s tough to fund a government bureaucracy in an ultra-low-tax environment, and at least in terms of taxes, the German Confederation is about as close as we’ve seen in the real world to a true libertarian paradise. There are no customs taxes – at least not on trade within the Zollverein. There are no income taxes on the rich because taxing the aristocracy would smack too much of French revolutionary-style rule. There are few taxes on the poor because the elites live in fear of a popular, French revolution-style uprising. Meanwhile, the governments are trying to maintain strong armies to deter Napoleon-style aggression from said French, and they’re struggling to make the trains run on time. Prussia is probably the most successful of the larger states, while Austria once again struggles because the Austrian Empire itself is this weird decentralized state with territories like Hungary that have their own issues but aren’t a part of Germany.

        -As you might imagine, in an environment where the governments in a region are barely stable, a shock to the system could cause a depression, state bankruptcy, or even a revolution, and the 1840s see a one-two punch that puts millions of people out of work all over Europe. The first is an outbreak of fungus that attacks potatoes and renders them completely inedible. The most famous local outbreak is in Ireland, where potatoes had become the primary dietary staple and many people starve when the harvest is inedible, while many others emigrate to the New World. But the potato blight of the 1840s, which really gets going around 1845, affects most of Europe, and potatoes are also a popular crop in Germany. Now, German agriculture isn’t based around a monoculture like it is in Ireland, so it’s not as if there’s nothing else to eat in Germany and people are starving. But what food there is becomes more expensive, which puts pressure on the working classes.

        -This would be bad enough, but like I said, there’s a one-two punch to the economy and the potato blight is just the first punch. The second punch comes from the railroads. Yes, the same railroads that provide the essential infrastructure for the industrial revolution also cause an economic crash. Without getting too far into the weeds, early railroads are a lot like the early internet in that they’re a brand new market with unknown potential. Everybody has their own idea for a railroad line and scrambles to line up investors, who hand out all kinds of loans to startup railroad companies throughout Europe and the New World. To make a long story short, much like the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, the railroad bubble of the 1840s results in a whole lot of railroad companies being founded – far more railroads in far more places than could ever conceivably be profitable. Then in 1845, when the British government needs all available funds to manage the Irish Potato Famine, the Bank of England raises its interest rates, which restricts capital and causes people to pull their money out of risky investments like railway stocks and put it into safer investments like bonds. With cash drying up and no real business reason to attract new investors, the railroad bubble bursts. The British economy goes into a tailspin which reaches its zenith with a banking crisis in 1847, and the recovery won’t begin until the very end of that year. Now, if you’re wondering why I’m talking about a British financial crisis in an episode about Italy and Germany, it’s because the British economy of this time period is like the American economy of today. It dominates the world, and when the British market catches a cold, everybody else gets sick. Sure enough, from 1845 to 1847, the entire European economy goes south, which puts many laborers out of work at the same time as food prices are rising due to the potato blight. The artisan and merchant classes also do poorly during these years. With so much poverty and people spending so much of their money on food, there are fewer customers to sell to, which only makes the crisis that much worse. With this many desperate people, it’s just a matter of time before something breaks in the political system.

So in 1848 there’s a potato famine causing a spike in food prices, at the same time as a good old fashioned financial bubble/banking crisis is squeezing everybody’s finances. Much like in 1830, there will be multiple outbreaks of violence throughout Europe, but some of the most immediate and intense violence breaks out in Italy. Remember, Italy has already had political violence both in 1820 and in 1830, and the Carbonari, this quasi-Masonic secret society, are still recruiting members. Even more feared by the authorities are Giuseppe Mazzini’s radical nationalist groups, Young Italy and Young Europe, and laws are passed imposing a death sentence not just for members of these groups, but for anyone who knows their activities and keeps silent.

        -The history of Young Italy and Young Europe could be an entire episode in itself, although much of it is shadowy and open to speculation. But there’s one story I do want to tell because it has a bearing on the broader revolution, and that’s the story of two brothers named Attilio and Emilio Bandiera. The Bandiera brothers are the sons of Baron Francesco Bandiera, who is an admiral in the Austrian navy. Both brothers follow their father’s footsteps and go into the naval service, with both of them serving on the same ship. Another thing both Bandiera brothers have in common is a dedication to the cause of Italian nationalism; not only are they members of Young Italy, but they’ve personally exchanged letters with Giuseppe Mazzini. These brothers go around their ship recruiting other young officers to their cause. Since most of these “Austrian” officers are native-born Italians, a number of them are open to the idea of taking over their ship and turning it against what they view as an Austrian occupation in Italy. So in early 1844, these junior officers, along with sympathetic Italian crewmembers, launch a successful mutiny, and set sail for the city of Messina on the island of Sicily, where they intend to bombard the local Austrian garrison and spark a revolution. Somehow, the would-be rebels’ plans are discovered by the Austrian intelligence services, so they call off the attack on Messina and instead sail for the Greek island of Corfu, which at this time is under British occupation for reasons I won’t get into here.

        -As soon as Attilio and Emilio Bandiera land their ship on Corfu, they start looking for another place to kick off a revolution, and through letters back and forth with Giuseppe Mazzini, they learn that there’s a planned uprising in Calabria, which is the toe of Italy. According to Mazzini’s exaggerated reports, the entire population is ready to revolt, so the Bandiera brothers load up their ship and sail for Calabria. But when they arrive, there are no crowds of people waiting at the beach to greet them. Unsure of what to do, the party marches out over land to some mountains where they can hunker down and come up with a plan, but one of the officers turns out to be a double-agent and betrays them to the local authorities. Apparently they’re also spotted by some local peasants, who see a gang of armed men getting off a ship and marching inland and assume these guys are pirates, so the peasants also report them to the authorities. And if that’s not enough, there’s even speculation that the British Foreign Secretary has secretly been reading the letters between the Bandiera brothers and Giuseppe Mazzini and feeding intelligence to the Austrians and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, which you may remember controls not just the island of Sicily but most of southern Italy. Anyway, the governor dispatches some police, who enlist help from an impromptu militia of armed citizens, and the police quickly locate the Bandiera brothers’ crew, who surrender after a short exchange of gunfire.

        -As it turns out, Giuseppe Mazzini’s stories of an impending Calabrian uprising weren’t as exaggerated as they had appeared. When the Bandiera brothers and their crew are locked in prison in the city of Cosenza, they find themselves imprisoned alongside a bunch of locals who had recently been arrested for trying to start a revolution. If the brothers had arrived just a little bit sooner, maybe they could have actually kicked out the local army garrison or achieved some other revolutionary feat. As it stands, all of the rebels are tried by authorities and condemned. Most are sent to work as galley slaves, which believe it or not is still a thing that can happen to you in the 1840s, but Attilio and Emilio Bandiera and nine of their crewmates are executed by firing squad on July 25th 1844.

        -Almost immediately, they become martyrs. Liberal publications that slip through the Austrian censors hail Attilio and Emilio Bandiera as patriotic heroes who laid down their lives for the cause of a unified Italy. Many otherwise-apolitical Italians are moved by the brothers’ sacrifice and become sympathetic to the cause of Italian nationalism, which is taking on a new name in the popular imagination. This name, created by revolutionary writers and now used by historians to describe the entire period of Italian unification, is Risorgimento, which means “resurgence” in Italian. This movement is no longer theoretical or political. It has a name, and it has a face – the faces of the Bandiera brothers, who if you believe some of the stories shout out “Long live Italy!” as they’re gunned down. Giuseppe Mazzini himself pays tribute to them two years later in the British working-class newspaper Northern Star, where he writes an epitaph on July 25th 1846, on the two-year anniversary of their execution:

        “And in distant years the story

Still shall our children tell

Of those who sleep in glory

At Cosenza where they fell.”

        -The various rulers throughout Italy aren’t stupid. They know they’re sitting on a powder keg, and as first the potato blight and then the financial crisis roll over Europe like the first two horsemen of the economic apocalypse, Italian leaders start enacting political reforms that give nationalists some of what they want without actually establishing any republics or kicking out the Austrians.

        -The foremost of these leaders is none other than the new Pope, Pius IX, who is elected in 1846. During his time as a bishop and cardinal, Pius had overseen a project to reorganize the church in Chile. Although the project was unsuccessful due to an ongoing revolution, Pius IX would nonetheless make history as the first Pope ever to have visited the New World, albeit he visited before his papacy. Pius had also been the Archbishop of Spoleto during the 1831 revolutions, and had personally convinced the government to issue a general amnesty for rebels in his diocese. Between this and his extensive charitable work, Pius IX has earned a reputation as a liberal, and is elected by the liberal faction in the papal conclave.

        -When he hears that Pius IX has been elected, Giuseppe Mazzini reaches out to him in an open letter, which an Italian nationalist throws through the window of the Papal carriage one day to ensure the new Pope receives it. I wasn’t able to find the full text of this letter – at least not in English – but the gist of it is a call for the Pope to endorse the unification of Italy as a constitutional system with the Pope as its head of state. Mazzini writes:

“…with you at its head, our struggle will take on a religious aspect and liberate us from the many risks of reaction and civil war.”

-Now, it’s fascinating to think what might have happened had Pope Pius IX accepted Mazzini’s offer, joined with Young Italy, and taken over Italy as the king/president of a theocratic republic. I think a lot about historical “what ifs,” and this is a big one, but it’s not to be. In an 1848 speech titled Non Semel, Pius flatly denounces both Italian nationalism and a Papal conquest of Italy. Once again, I couldn’t find an English text of this speech, but there is an Italian version hosted on the Vatican’s website, and I ran it through Google Translate. For what it’s worth, here’s the most relevant passage:

“…since now some would like us together with the other peoples and princes of Italy to go to war against the Germans, we felt it our duty to declare clearly in this solemn conference that this is completely contrary to our intentions, as we, although unworthy, let us take the place of the One who is the Author of peace and the lover of charity, and by the duty of Our Supreme Apostolate We with equal paternal affection love and embrace all peoples and all nations…

“Here then, in the presence of all peoples, we cannot fail to reject the devious advice, also expressed through newspapers and pamphlets, of those who would like the Roman Pontiff President of a certain new Republic to be made, all together, by the peoples of Italy. Indeed, on this occasion, for Our charity towards the peoples of Italy we warmly urge them and admonish them to beware of these cunning and pernicious advice for Italy itself, and to be faithful to their Princes, of which they have already experienced benevolence, and not to let themselves be detached from the due respect towards them. In fact, operating otherwise would not only fail to do so, but would also incur the danger that Italy would end up divided by discord and internal factions day by day. As for us, however, again we declare that the Roman Pontiff directs his every thought, every care, every study so that the kingdom of Christ, which is the Church, grows every day; but not because the boundaries of the Civil Principality are dilated which God wanted given to this Holy See for its dignity and to defend the free exercise of the Supreme Apostolate. Therefore, those who believe that our soul can be flattered by the ambition of wider temporal domination, to the point that we throw ourselves into the midst of the turmoil of weapons, are greatly mistaken.”

-Pope Pius IX clearly has no appetite for earthly conquests of either the political or military variety, instead preferring to focus on his primary job of, you know, being a religious leader. Anyone who had been expecting this guy to step into his role and immediately start trying to push the Austrians out of Italy is grossly mistaken. In fact, Pius says exactly the opposite: the Papal States are just the right size. Any smaller, and the Church would be too vulnerable to the whims of neighboring political leaders. Any larger, and the Pope would inevitably get dragged into wars that would run counter to the Church’s core mission, which had sometimes happened in the past when the Papal States were more powerful. This is not to say that Pius IX is not a liberal. As a leader and in his personal administration of the Papal States, he makes some significant liberal reforms which we’ll get to in a little bit. Pius just has zero interest in marrying liberal politics to Catholic doctrine or vice-versa. Even so, his open moves toward liberalization within the Papal States give other Italian leaders “permission” to make similar moves, and in 1847 and 1848 we see a series of constitutional changes throughout Italy.

Unfortunately, these kinds of changes can take time to implement, and before any of the Italian leaders can actually enact their reforms, people are already protesting in the streets. The first mass, organized protests take place in the most authoritarian part of Italy, the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. Encompassing a large chunk of northeastern Italy, Lombardy-Venetia includes the cities of Milan and Venice. While Austria rules most of Italy via proxies, the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia is unique in Italy in that it’s an Austrian crown land. In other words, the kingdom is not part of Austria, but Ferdinand I, the epileptic Austrian emperor, is also the King of Lombardy-Venetia. In this area of direct Austrian control, press censorship is particularly severe, and unlike in other parts of Italy, there’s not even a whisper of the possibility of popular reforms. So nationalists and liberals alike unite to hit their Austrian overlords where it hurts most – in the pocketbook.

        -Like I said, the Austrian Empire has limited sources of income, and things are no different in the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. There, most of the government revenue comes from vice taxes, specifically on gambling and tobacco, and starting on January 1st 1848, people in the city of Milan give up smoking and gambling, endangering the five-and-a-half-million Lire in annual revenue from these taxes. Obviously, not all the people in Milan are okay with this boycott, so nationalists begin using social pressure to ensure its success. In his book The Risorgimento: Italy, 1815-1871, historian Tim Chapman summarizes the events as follows:

        “Pickets stood outside tobacconists and shouts of ‘traitor’ were heard when customers entered. Attacks on people seen smoking in the streets led to tobacco riots in which barricades were constructed.”

        -In response to the riots, the local Austrian general, Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky, brings in troops, who are tasked to guard tobacco shops and gambling establishments and keep mobs at a safe distance. On January 3rd, a particular group of soldiers is guarding a particular shop when the crowd starts throwing rocks at them. More troops are brought in to deter any further aggression by the rioters, but a group of cavalrymen breaks discipline and charges into the crowd in an effort to disperse them. Six rioters are killed in the fighting and an additional 50 people are injured, and at this point both sides decide that a mutual stand-down is in order. The protestors throughout Milan quietly disperse and go about their lives, and Field Marshal Radetzky, an 81-year-old veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, is himself horrified at the violence and orders his troops confined to their barracks for the next five days.

        -So far, we’ve had some rioting in Milan, but that hardly explains why we consider 1848 to be a revolutionary year in Europe. Instead, we have to look a little further south to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where the Bandiera brothers have so recently been executed. On January 9th, a group of revolutionaries puts up flyers around the city of Palermo, Sicily, advertising an uprising in three days, on January 12th. This might seem like a clumsy way to begin a revolution, but amazingly, it works. King Ferdinand II doesn’t have enough troops in the area to put down a rebellion, and when thousands of people gather in the city’s square where revolutionaries are handing out weapons, there are simply too many people and not enough soldiers for anything to be done. So, on January 12th 1848, rebel leaders tear down the flag of the Bourbon dynasty and raise the green, white, and red flag of the Italian tricolor, which we know today as the Italian flag. But for a few months from 1848 through 1849, this flag is actually the flag of the short-lived Kingdom of Sicily.

        -Back on the Italian mainland, riots break out in the city of Naples as soon as people get word of the Sicilian rebellion. Ferdinand II has literally just sent most of his army to Sicily to put down that rebellion, so there are not enough troops to disperse the 25,000 people protesting in front of the royal residence. To mollify the rioters, he establishes a constitution for the citizens on the Italian mainland, and then tries to end the Sicilian rebellion by granting Sicily its own separate constitution based on the old constitution of 1812. The new constitution calms down the rebels on the Italian mainland, as most of their demands have been met. It also causes a number of the Sicilian rebels to go home, but a hard core of them remain active in Palermo, then fall back to the fortified city of Messina, because for them, a liberal constitution isn’t good enough. Not even Italian unification would be good enough. For the Sicilian rebels in particular, the goal is an independent island of Sicily, and the rest of Italy can do whatever it wants. So Ferdinand II will still have to deal with them, even though the rest of his country is back under control.

        -Moving on to yet another part of Italy’s political map, we come to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, located on the western side of the boot of Italy just north of Rome. There, Grand Duke Leopold II rules from his capital in the city of Florence. Like any good Habsburg, Leopold II is the son of two people who are themselves double first cousins, so like Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, Leopold II of Tuscany only has four great-grandparents instead of the usual eight. Unlike Ferdinand I, he doesn’t seem to suffer any of the negative effects of inbreeding, and lives a long life in relatively good health. With all the rioting elsewhere in Italy, Leopold issues a liberal constitution on February 17th 1848, which calms things down there.

        -Finally, on February 21st 1848, Pope Pius IX issues a constitution for the Papal States, shocking just about everybody in Europe. The Constitution, which goes into effect on March 14th, establishes a bicameral legislature with one elected chamber and the other chamber made up of Papal appointees. Full civil rights are extended to Jews for the first time in the Papal territories, and the Pope releases all political prisoners who had been held for revolutionary reasons. Given the usually conservative nature of the Papacy as well as the Papal States, the issuance of a liberal constitution may come as a surprise, but understand that Pius IX is walking a tightrope here. On the one hand, he’s made it clear that he’s opposed to Italian nationalism and has said that if someone is going to politically unite Italy, it’s not going to be him. Given the importance of the city of Rome to the idea of Italian nationalism, this puts the Papal States on the target list for anyone wanting to establish an Italian state. If you can’t unite Italy without controlling Rome and the guy in charge of Rome is opposed to unification, the only way forward is to kick that guy out of Rome. On the other hand, Pius IX also has to watch out for the Austrians. He’s the only monarch in Italy who isn’t part of the Habsburg family or one of its cadet branches, and he knows his history well enough to know that many Popes have spent their reigns as little more than puppets of more powerful neighbors. In the past, it was often the French who controlled Popes, but Pius IX is worldly enough not to put his trust in the Habsburgs, either. In fact, the main instigating force for the Pope’s announcement of the new constitution is a series of protests in Rome itself. The protestors aren’t calling for the downfall of the Pope, but they’ve heard about the revolution in Naples and they’ve also heard that the Austrians are planning to march an army south, which could mean an Austrian army marching across the Papal States. What the protestors are demanding is that the Pope establish a civilian government to raise an army and deal with the perceived military threat. What Pius IX is doing with his liberal constitution is demonstrating that there is a third way between open war and submission to a foreign power – that Italian people can have their freedom and self-determination without the need for a nation-state or violent revolution. Sadly, his third way never really has time to pan out, because events elsewhere in Europe are pushing Italy headlong down the road to political violence. “Where in Europe?” you might ask. The answer is France. When it comes to Europe and revolutions, France is the correct answer more often than not.

So I lied when I said we’d be staying in Italy for the rest of the episode, but it was a white lie. We’ll be getting back to Italy in just a second, and if we’re going to understand what happens next in that part of Europe, we absolutely need to talk about what happens in France in February of 1848, because otherwise nothing that happens in Italy, Germany, or anywhere else over the coming months is going to make any sense at all. As you’ll recall, France is currently under a constitutional monarchy led by King Louis-Philippe, a relatively liberal king whose main goal has been to make France a leading power in the international race towards industrialization. His market-friendly policies have made him unpopular with the lower classes, who are the ones with the most to lose from moving from one type of economy to the other, and there’s a strong, fast-growing Socialist movement in France by the 1840s. Moreover, Louis-Philippe is not much more popular with the old aristocracy. Most of them would prefer a return to the old system where nobles receive special privileges and can live in luxury on the rent from their estates. So they’re also not pleased with him, just for different reasons than the poor.

        -Instead, Louis-Philippe draws his support from France’s fastest-growing class of all, the middle class, which benefits the most from industrialization and a free market economy. To this end, he appoints a Prime Minister named Francois Guizot. A Protestant and a historian by profession, Guizot is an old-school constitutional monarchist who believes that only those with the most property should have the right to vote. However, the wealth requirements for voting are high enough that most of the middle class is not allowed to vote, and in fact, for every voter in the city of Paris, there are more than ten newspaper subscribers. These are educated people who take the effort to inform themselves on public affairs, but whenever someone demands that Francois Guizot expand the franchise, his only response is “Enrichissez vous,” or “Get rich.”

        -As 1847 draws to a close, France is suffering from the same economic downturn as everyone else in Europe, and even among King Louis-Philippe’s middle class supporters, there are many who are beginning to think the King’s laissez faire economic policies are endangering their welfare, and Louis-Philippe finds himself with fewer friends than ever on the streets of Paris.

        -These angry middle class non-voters evade a ban on public political meetings by scheduling a series of banquets. Much like the Hambacher fest in Germany, these banquets are open to the public, and if it just so happens that people are discussing politics while attending a totally non-political banquet, there’s nothing the government can do about it. There are a number of these banquets in late 1847 into early 1848, and some of Europe’s most famous political minds come to one or the other of them. For example, Friedrich Engels, co-author of The Communist Manifesto, attends a banquet mere months before he and Marx publish it. On January 14th 1848, Prime Minister Guizot has had enough, and officially bans the banquets, citing their openly political nature.

        -The banquets’ organizers, who are mostly constitutional monarchists with a small number of pro-republican supporters, had originally scheduled the next banquet in Paris’ 12th Arrondissement, which has been a hotbed of republican support since the original French Revolution broke out in 1789. Unwilling to cancel the event but also not wanting to antagonize the government too much, the organizers agree to move the banquet to the Champs-Elysées on February 22nd. So far so good. But then a group of radical workers groups – almost all of them outright republicans – decide to hold a political protest at the same time as the banquet. This causes the middle class organizers to call off the banquet altogether, rather than risk any outbreak of violence. Even the republican faction is on board. They want a peaceful democracy, not a repeat of the French Revolution. But they don’t call off the banquet until the night before it’s scheduled, at which point notices have already gone out in a workers’ newspaper advertising the protests for the next day. Meanwhile, the organizers have notified the government that the banquet is canceled, so the extra National Guard troops who had been supposed to have been deployed to the Champs-Elysées to keep order are sent back to their barracks. So when February 22nd rolls around, instead of an orderly banquet where some middle class people give political speeches under the watchful eye of the National Guard, people near the Champs-Elysées awaken to find a disorderly mob of unruly protesters and few police.

        -Paris authorities quickly realize their mistake and re-deploy the National Guard, but by the time the troops arrive, the crowd of workers have been joined by seven hundred university students who have just marched up singing La Marseillaise, the anthem of the French Revolution that is also the national anthem of modern-day France.

        -Even at this late juncture, there’s a good chance of avoiding any serious violence. At this time in history, both the military and the National Guard are sources of pride in France, and the troops are for the most part well-respected by the people. The idea of a French citizen attacking a French soldier is simply a bridge too far even for would-be revolutionaries. The protesters march forward, trying to reach the Chamber of Deputies, where the elected government is meeting in session. National guardsmen block the way and cavalrymen ride slowly into the crowd, pushing them back without anyone getting killed or seriously injured. Unfortunately, the authorities make another mistake, and it’s a critical one.

        -Rather than continue to rely on the National Guard, which is doing its job just fine, authorities decide to send in the Municipal Guard, who aren’t soldiers at all; they’re what we modern people would call “riot police,” and they’ve broken up many protests over the last several years. Unlike the army or the National Guard, the Municipal Guard has a reputation for cruelty – for example, beating people with clubs even after they’ve been arrested – and unlike the National Guard, these aren’t men who may one day be called upon to give their lives for the glory of France. They’re just a bunch of chuds who collect a paycheck from the regime in exchange for beating up on the working man.

        -In his book 1848, Year of Revolution, Scottish historian Mike Rapport writes:

        “The violence erupted when stones were hurled by the crowd at the Municipals, who reacted by forcing their way through the tumult, sabres drawn, and knocking people over. One of the victims was an old woman, who died when her head hit the paving stones; elsewhere a worker was hacked down by a sabre. The first blood had been spilled and now fighting broke out across the city; outside Guizot’s home in the Foreign Ministry on the rue des Capucines, on the Champs-Elysées, on the Place de la Bastille and at the stock exchange. The insurgents had armed themselves first with iron railings torn down from fences, then with arms pillaged from gun shops. The forces of order managed to protect the public buildings, but the crowds simply retreated into the labyrinthine streets of the artisanal districts.”

        -As this is going on, the French elected legislature, called the Chamber of Deputies, holds an emergency meeting to decide on a response. A number of politicians, both the liberal constitutional monarchist opposition and the more radical republicans, call for Francois Guizot to be immediately removed from office, but others are concerned about making any concessions to an unruly mob, so the motion to remove Guizot is voted down.

        -The night of February 22nd, the rioters set up barricades throughout the streets of Paris. This makes it difficult for Municipal Guardsmen to maneuver around the city. In the morning, the rioting continues, as do the thefts from gun shops. The more guns make their way into the crowd, the fewer people are swinging clubs and the more are shooting at each-other. In this environment, the National Guardsmen try to minimize the violence by getting between the Municipal Guards and the armed citizens. In one incident outside a gun shop, a National Guard commander personally inserts himself into the middle of a firefight between rioters and Municipal Guardsmen who are protecting the shop, and he convinces the Guardsmen to stand down without further bloodshed.

        -By the afternoon of February 23rd, King Louis-Philippe has made his decision. He calls Francois Guizot to his office and tells him that he needs to resign for the good of France. Guizot takes it like a champ, goes to the Chamber of Deputies, and tenders his resignation. That evening, Louis-Philippe appoints a new Prime Minister, a guy named Adolphe Thiers, who is still a constitutional monarchist but a bit more liberal than Guizot.

-For a few hours, things seem to calm down. Having gotten rid of the unpopular Prime Minister, many of the rioters go home. But a few hundred linger in the Paris streets, whether because they don’t believe the reports of Guizot’s firing or because they’re hardcore republicans. Around 9:30 in the evening, these few hundred people decide to demand the dismissal of the rest of Louis-Philippe’s cabinet, and march towards the Foreign Ministry’s headquarters to surround it. The building is guarded by a regiment of regular army troops who block the road. The people march right up to them, but everyone is being peaceful. Nobody is hitting anyone or shooting them, just chanting slogans and pushing forward. The commander of the army unit orders his men to fix bayonets, not to attack anybody but to deter the crowd from continuing their forward movement. And as the soldiers are making this movement to attach their bayonets, somebody fires a shot. Maybe it’s somebody in the crowd; maybe it’s a nervous soldier who breaks discipline. Nobody knows. Regardless of who fires the shot, it causes the soldiers to panic and discharge their guns into the crowd at point blank range, killing more than 50 people.

-The crowd runs away, but the news of the massacre soon spreads, and by midnight on the night of the 23rd, people are once again leaving their homes to man the barricades in the city streets. Louis-Philippe then calls in more regular army troops to clear the streets on the morning of the 24th, but he doesn’t want another massacre. Instead, he orders the officers only to bring their troops up to the barricades but not to remove them by force. Instead, they’re to negotiate with the insurgents from a position of armed strength. This doesn’t work, and Louis-Philippe’s commanders tell him that there’s no way to forcibly clear out the barricades without tremendous loss of life. Adolphe Thiers recommends evacuating the government from Paris, but the king shoots down the idea, again unwilling to escalate the violence. Thiers resigns, having served less than 24 hours as Prime Minister.

-By the end of the 24th, angry crowds have fought their way from street to street and arrived outside the royal palace. Louis-Philippe abdicates the throne, gets into a carriage with his family, and takes off for England, where he will spend the next two years living in exile before his death in 1850.

-In the aftermath of the February 1848 revolution, the French government draws up a new constitution for a republican government. In December, the French will elect their very first President, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. Louis Napoleon is the nephew of the original Napoleon, and will dismantle the republican government over the next few years to establish a new French Empire in 1852. But that’s another story. For our purposes, the important thing is that in the midst of a financial crisis and all kinds of political unrest in Italy and Germany, the French have once again reminded the rest of Europe that even a powerful, centralized modern government can be overthrown.

Okay, let’s get back to Italy. At this point, I want to talk about one of most of the important figures in the Revolutions of 1848, and that’s Charles Albert, King of Piedmont-Sardinia, which includes not just the old territory of Piedmont in the northwestern Italian mainland, but also the island of Sardinia to the south of the mainland and west of the Italian peninsula. In 1848, Charles Albert is 49 years old, and has been king since 1831, but he’d grown up not even expecting to be king. When he was born in 1798, he was fifth in line for the throne, and he wasn’t even born in Piedmont-Sardinia – he was born in Paris. See, the French revolutionary army had recently invaded Piedmont-Sardinia, and despite taking the French side, Charles Albert’s parents had been confined so the revolutionary government could keep an eye on them. His father would die in the year 1800 when he was just two years old, and the family’s fortunes would not improve until his mother remarried another nobleman in 1808. He would be introduced to Napoleon in 1810 at the age of 12, and the Emperor would grant him the title of Count as well as a spot in one of Paris’ most prestigious preparatory schools.

        -After passing his exams in 1814, he goes into military school, and is commissioned as a dragoon lieutenant before the end of the year. Unfortunately for Charles Albert, he’s getting into the Napoleonic Army at just the wrong time. When Napoleon is sent into exile and King Louis XVIII becomes king, the family is forgiven for siding with Napoleon during the wars, but Charles Albert does have to give up his title of Count, which had come with a generous income. On the other hand, things have changed back in Piedmont-Sardinia. Two of the people ahead of him in line for the throne had died when he was a child, and neither the new king, Victor Emmanuel, or his brother, Charles Felix, has produced a male heir. All of a sudden, Charles Albert is second in line for the throne, and he’s more than 30 years younger than his distant cousin Charles Felix, who is first in line. In other words, he’s now expecting to become king someday, and he needs to find a wife of an appropriate stature. He finds one in Archduchess Maria Theresa, the sister of Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany. In 1817 he travels to Florence to meet her, and the two are married in the Florence Cathedral in September. Three years and two miscarriages later, Maria Theresa gives birth to the couple’s first child: a son named Victor Emmanuel, who becomes the heir apparent to the throne of Piedmont-Sardinia.

        -Having spent so much time in France, it’s no surprise that the young Charles Albert is a political liberal. He hosts a number of liberal and revolutionary intellectuals in his home, and eventually makes friends with some military officers who are members of the Carbonari. They plan a revolution for March of 1821, with the intention of installing a constitutional monarchy with Charles Albert at its head. Eventually Charles Albert gets cold feet and goes to warn King Victor Emmanuel I that there’s a plot against him. We’ve already covered this part of the story in our discussion of the 1821 revolution, but to recap, a bunch of Carbonari, led by an officer named Santorre di Santarosa, go ahead with the revolution without Charles Albert’s support. They quickly surround the royal palace and Victor Emmanuel abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Charles Felix. But Charles Felix is out of the country at the moment, so young Charles Albert is now stuck as regent trying to clean up the mess that he helped make. So he sends a letter to Charles Felix asking for help, while at the same time agreeing to a liberal constitution and making Santorre di Santarosa the Minister of War. Then he heroically sneaks out of town and goes into exile, eventually settling in Florence with Maria Theresa and baby Victor Emmanuel.

        -Charles Felix returns to Piedmont-Sardinia, where he quickly gets rid of the rebels and re-establishes absolute monarchy. He’s furious at Charles Albert about the rebellion, and threatens to cut him out of the line of succession and make baby Victor Emmanuel first in line for the throne. Charles Felix is talked out of this by none other than Klemens von Metternich, which may be surprising because Metternich is pretty conservative, but he opposes messing with the line of succession for conservative reasons. See, Metternich values stability more than anything else, and tinkering with the royal line is a recipe for instability.

        -To get back in the king’s good graces, Charles Albert renounces liberal politics, and even volunteers to participate in a military expedition with conservative French Bourbon King Louis XVIII to rescue conservative Spanish Bourbon King Ferdinand VII, who has been taken hostage in the city of Cadiz by Spanish revolutionaries. Outside of Cadiz, the French expeditionary force would be blocked by an island fort called the Trocadero. In the battle, Charles Albert would lead a bayonet assault along the edge of a canal during the low tide, spearheading the French breakthrough into the fortress. For his bravery during the war, he would be awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s most prestigious military medal. However, Charles Albert would soon become as disillusioned by conservative kings as he had by liberal revolutionaries. After the French victory, Ferdinand VII, who had helped to negotiate his own release by promising to give amnesty to the rebels, instead orders them all to be killed, and thousands of people are shot in the coming days. The commander of the French expeditionary force, the Duke of Angoulême, actually turns down an offer to become a Spanish prince, because he’s disgusted by this betrayal and massacre. In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo sums up the Spanish Expedition as follows:

        “A few feats of arms were serious affairs; the taking of Trocadero, among others, was a handsome military exploit; but, taken all in all, we repeat, the trumpets of this war emitted a cracked and feeble sound, the general appearance of it was suspicious, and history approves the unwillingness of France to accept so false a triumph. It seemed clear that certain Spanish officers, entrusted with the duty of resistance, yielded too easily; the idea of bribery was suggested by a contemplation of the victory; it appeared as if the generals, rather than the battles, had been won, and the victorious soldier returned humiliated. It was a debasing war, indeed, where you could read Bank of France on the folds of the flag.”

        -After this, Charles Albert returns home to the Piedmontese capital of Turin and takes his proper place at King Charles Felix’ side. As I said, Charles Albert is disillusioned by politics, and he spends most of the next several years staying out of politics altogether. Between 1824 and 1830, he writes a series of literary essays that are generally well-regarded, as well as three historical books. In 1827, he and Maria Theresa even co-author a series of 38 French children’s stories entitled Contes moraux, which is still available in print in the 21st century. Charles Albert isn’t like Saddam Hussein writing terrible romance novels that are actually thinly-veiled political allegories and strongly encouraging his people to read them. He’s actually a pretty good writer. He also makes a number of donations to literary organizations, including both right- and left-leaning political publications.

        -In April of 1830, King Charles Felix dies, and the 31-year-old Charles Albert is crowned as the new King of Piedmont-Sardinia. His policies are a mix of enlightenment liberalism and a belief in a strong monarchy, so a bit of the left and a bit of the right; Charles Albert is the nineteenth century version of a radical centrist. On the one hand, he marries his son, Victor Emmanuel II, to Adelaide of Austria, who is the daughter of Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria, who is the viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia, which is that kingdom in northeast Italy where Milan and Venice are and where the Austrian Emperor rules directly. This marriage is meant to secure Austrian goodwill, and could be interpreted as a sign of submission, a recognition that Piedmont-Sardinia, like the rest of Italy, plays second banana to the Austrian Empire on the stage of world politics. Charles Albert also puts down a revolutionary plot by members of Young Italy and sentences 33 of them to death, and sends troops to support the conservative side during civil wars in Spain and Portugal. On the other hand, he modernizes his economy by reducing tariff barriers and investing in railroads to support industrialization, and he streamlines the army by eliminating make-work positions for members of the nobility. Charles Albert abolishes serfdom on the island of Sardinia, as well as making several reforms to Piedmont-Sardinia’s outdated legal code. For example, torture is made illegal and the families of condemned criminals are allowed to keep their property after the execution instead of the condemned person’s estate being seized by the government. And, much like Friedrich Wilhelm IV up in Prussia, Charles Albert invests lavishly in his country’s culture, both in the arts and in education.

        -No description of Charles Albert would be complete without a sketch of his character, and here, like in his politics, the King of Piedmont-Sardinia is something of a contradiction. On the one hand, he’s an ultra-religious Catholic who goes to Mass twice a day, fasts two or more days a week, and follows the medieval practices of sleeping on a metal bed and wearing a hair shirt under his clothes so he’s always uncomfortable. On the other hand, Charles Albert is notorious for sleeping with any woman who will have him. Among multiple other mistresses, he even carries on a years-long affair with the daughter of the Prussian ambassador. On top of that, the guy is tough as nails. He suffers from a chronic liver disease that causes constant digestive issues, and he struggles to keep on weight. But he’s known for working tirelessly every day without fail, and for waking up promptly at five in the morning.

        -In early 1848, Piedmont-Sardinia is going through many of the same issues as the rest of Europe. The economy is down, food prices are up, and people’s lives are already in turmoil from industrialization. Charles Albert reads the room, and like other Italian leaders, he decides to pre-empt any revolutionary activity by voluntarily issuing a constitution. On March 4th, 1848, he publishes what comes to be known as the Albertine Statute, which creates a constitutional monarchy with a strong executive branch. The King has broad powers, including the power to make war, and his powers are hereditary. He also has the right to directly appoint people to the new Piedmontese Senate. However, there are some important limits on royal power. For example, while the King appoints Senators directly, the other legislative house, the Chamber of Deputies, is elected, and while the King can temporarily dissolve a meeting of the elected chamber, he can only do so for four months. The Chamber of Deputies also has the right to impeach royal ministers with or without the King’s permission, an important measure to prevent corruption. Most importantly, citizens receive full equality before the law, the right to a fair trial, the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, the right to compensation if the government seizes property via eminent domain. There is also to be a mostly-free press. Not bad.

        -The reason I spent so much time on Charles Albert and the Albertine Statute is because this isn’t yet another constitution for yet another Italian state that’s not going to exist anymore in 23 years. For various historical reasons we’ll get into, the Albertine Statute will soon become the constitution of the Kingdom of Italy, and will remain the supreme law of the land on the Italian Peninsula all the way up to 1946 and the creation of the modern Italian Republic. So put a pin in King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia, because he’s about to become very important.

For the moment, though, we need to switch locations once again to northeastern Italy and the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, because there’s trouble brewing in the city of Milan. If you’ll recall, back in January, Milanese Italian nationalists had boycotted Austrian-run tobacco and gambling establishments, and the local Austrian general, Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky, had sent in troops to disperse the rioters. This had temporarily crushed the riots, but it hadn’t changed the underlying dynamic: the Austrian monarchy remains deeply unpopular with Lombardy-Venetia’s population. And once again events elsewhere in Europe are fanning the flames of revolution. The French have overthrown the Bourbons again and put another Bonaparte in charge, this time as the head of a republic. Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia has established a constitutional monarchy. In Vienna itself, the heart of the Austrian Empire, widespread riots are threatening to overthrow the government. In fact, there’s all kinds of instability in the Austrian Empire right now, including a rebellion in Serbia, and we’ll get into all those events in the next episode. And on March 13th, in a last-ditch effort to avert a French-style revolution, Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, who has been the most powerful man in the Austrian Empire for the last 30 years, resigns from the government.

        -Word of Metternich’s resignation arrives in the city of Milan on March 17th, and that afternoon a bunch of Milanese Italian nationalists get together to decide on a response. Metternich’s absence leaves a huge power vacuum in the Austrian Empire, and the nationalists broadly agree that now is the time to declare independence from Austria altogether. Now, nationalists outnumber supporters of the Austrian Empire by a fair margin, so it’s safe to say that the overwhelming majority of Milanese leaders support some kind of independence, but they support independence for different reasons. Some are radical republicans who want a small republican state in the area around Milan and Venice. Others are old-school Italian aristocrats who want to establish a regional Italian monarchy where Italian nobles will not have to take a back seat to Austrian nobles from across the border. Still others are supporters of Giuseppe Mazzini’s vision of a single Italian nation-state from Sicily to the Alps. The only thing all these people can agree on is that they want the Austrians out.

        -In the wake of Metternich’s death, the Milanese Italian nationalists split into two camps. On the left is the republican faction, led by revolutionary writer Carlo Cattaneo. On the right and center is a larger faction led by Milan’s mayor, Gabrio Casati, which favors a constitutional monarchy. This faction is much larger, and it wins the day for now. The reason Gabrio Casati is able to gather so much support for a constitutional monarchy is that everyone knows that any attempt to revolt against Austria will be met with an Austrian military response, and Lombardy-Venetia lacks both the men and the existing military establishment to fight off the Austrian Empire. If the Austrians are to be convinced to back off, Milan is going to need a well-armed protector, and who better than Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia, who has just granted his people a liberal-ish constitution. Charles Albert could hardly be expected to involve himself with a republican revolt on his doorstep, but he might be convinced to stand up for Milanese revolutionaries who want a king.

        -Anyway, this group of Milanese nationalists meets on March 17th 1848 and agrees to organize a mass protest on the next day, March 18th, and to call for a constitutional monarchy. Flyers are quickly published and posted throughout the streets, and authorities prepare for trouble. Field Marshal Radetzky initially orders his troops to deploy around the city and surround important buildings, but Mayor Casati convinces him that any troop presence will only inflame people’s passions. Better to let the protesters march peacefully and not risk any kind of escalation. Reluctantly, Field Marshal Radetzky agrees to keep his men in their garrison, although he does order them to stay alert and keep their weapons ready for action. Even so, this decision not to deploy troops helps pave the way for one of the most iconic events of the Risorgimento: a popular revolution known to history as the Five Days of Milan.

On the morning of March 18th 1848, more than 15,000 people gather in the streets of Milan. The weather is miserable. Radetzky will later describe the sky as being the color of lead, and how a light mist begins to fall in the morning and intensify to a downpour by evening. This downpour will continue for the next several days. But for now, the protestors are jubilant. This isn’t some unruly mob. It’s more like a parade, led by a number of civic leaders including Mayor Casati, with people wearing Italian tricolor pins and waving green, white, and red flags overhead. This parade winds its way through Milan’s streets and eventually arrives at the Pallazo del Governo.

        -The Pallazo is Milan’s medieval ducal palace, which has since become the seat of the local Austrian governorship and has been renovated multiple times into an impressive neo-classical structure worthy of the Imperial Court. With Field Marshal Radetzky’s men back in their barracks, there are so few guards outside the palace that when 15,000 people show up and try to break in they stand aside and let the crowd do whatever it wants.

        -The marchers don’t get their hands on Marshal Radetzky, who is well away from the city center. But they do get their hands on the Austrian vice governor, Maximilian O'Donnell. Peaceful or not, any crowd of 15,000 people has a certain persuasive power, and O’Donnell is basically a hostage. O’Donnell himself is a fascinating guy. He’s descended from Ulster royalty in Ireland, and in 1853 he’ll be present when the new Austrian Emperor, Franz Josef I, is attacked by a knife-wielding assassin, and he’ll become famous for cutting that assassin down with a saber, for which the Emperor would reward him with the title of Count of the Austrian Empire. But for now, Maximilian O’Donnell, the future king-saver, is surrounded by 15,000 Italian nationalists, and when they demand that he sign a document ordering the formation of a Civic Guard, he signs it.

        -Milan’s Civic Guard is similar to the National Guard of the French Revolutionary era. It’s a paramilitary group made up of armed citizens who earn enough to provide for their own weapons and supplies. Whether or not the crowd that’s just marched on the ducal palace is peaceful is a matter of opinion at this point, but the formation of a Civic Guard is a direct threat to the authority of the imperial government, and Field Marshal Radetzky, the grizzled Napoleonic War veteran, is forced to act. Mike Rapport describes his response as follows:

        “The frustrated Radetzky, who had been watching events furiously from the sidelines, struck back. His troops double-quicked through the streets to protect such buildings as the police headquarters, the law courts and the army engineering depot. Tyrolean marksmen were posted high among the marble needles of Milan’s great cathedral, from where they would snipe at all and sundry – be they insurgents or hapless citizens caught in the crossfire. The Milanese quickly threw up barricades in the narrow streets of the old city. Bells rang from the church towers to summon people to the defenses. At first these fortifications were makeshift, comprised of overturned carriages, barrels and hastily chopped-down trees. Soon they were bolstered by paving stones, sofas, beds, pianos, and church furniture.”

        -In a letter to his commanding officer, Karl Ludwig von Ficquelmont, who is soon to be chosen as Metternich’s successor as head of the government, Field Marshal Radetzky gives his own account, making it very clear that it’s the nationalist protesters who initiate the use of violence. Whether or not his report is self-serving is a matter of opinion, but he writes:

        “The armed forces were in their barracks because an outbreak of revolt seemed so improbable. I was in my office when the storm broke out and had to flee to the citadel so as to escape being surrounded by the mob. Increasingly alarming news soon began to came in. When I heard of barricades being erected in all the main streets, I alerted the troops. I received no further news until the Commissioner of Police, de Betta, arrived to say that all the small guard at Government House had been either killed, seriously wounded, or disarmed. The building was sacked, a part of the archives destroyed, and the acting Governor… O’Donnell, taken prisoner. General Wohlgemuth, who was in command of the troops in that area, stormed the barricades, using artillery, and re-occupied the building…

        “By this time fighting had broken out at various places. There was shooting from the windows, and all sorts of objects were thrown from the rooftops. Many a brave soldier lost his life in this way. When General Rath moved his troops into the center to occupy the Piazza del Duomo and the main government buildings, there was tough fighting in the streets, but the soldiers got through despite the barricades.”

        -Regardless of who escalates to violence first, the crowd sees troops marching through the streets, and people start forming barricades. And what I have to make clear is that on this first day of the Five Days of Milan, nobody is really in charge. Nobody has openly called for armed rebellion; things have just kind of escalated. So all kinds of groups of people are getting together with their friends and putting up barricades, and these groups can be anything from shadowy organizations like the Carbonari and other secret societies to political clubs to groups of neighbors. This is the thing with urban barricades; it can be tough to tell sometimes why people are putting them up. Maybe I’m putting up a barricade because I’m a political radical. Maybe I’m putting up a barricade because political radicals and police are about to start shooting at each other in the streets and a barricade will keep my particular street from becoming part of the battlefield. In his account, Mike Rapport writes about an Austrian diplomat named Joseph von Hubner who has the misfortune of being in Milan right as the violence breaks out, and this guy ends up hiding out in a building in the zone between the army and some armed insurgents, and to discourage people from shooting at his building the people inside all close the shutters. And by the third day of fighting, the shooting has been so intense that the shutters have just been blown into splinters and there’s nothing to hide behind. So it’s easy to understand how even apolitical people can set up a barricade or arm up in their own defense, and how easily those same people will then follow anyone who sets themselves up as a credible leader.

        -Anyway, there’s no organization among these Milanese rebels on the first day of the revolution. Besides the apolitical people I just talked about, the Italian nationalists continue to have their own disagreements. Some are republicans. Some want Charles Albert to come in and make Milan part of a unified Italy. Some are chanting slogans calling for Pope Pius IX to absorb Milan into the Papal States, and at one intersection some of the people have even found a statue of the Pope and propped it up like a figurehead on top of their barricade. In fact, more than 100 priests participate not just in the day’s peaceful protests but also in the ensuing violence. It’s worth noting that this is one important way in which the Italian revolutionaries of 1848 differ from the French revolutionaries of two generations earlier. The French revolutionary movement had been largely anti-Catholic. Italian revolutionary nationalism, more often than not, is draped in Catholic imagery.

        -As a rainy dusk settles over Milan on the night of March 18th, the city center is now controlled by a loose coalition of armed groups led by a majority of Milan’s political elite. Radetzky’s troops control the city outskirts, where the neighborhoods are less dense and it’s tougher to set up barricades, as well as the countryside around Milan.

The next day, March 19th, the same political elites who had organized yesterday’s peaceful protests meet again to decide what to do now that they’ve gone and started a revolution. Once again, the monarchists and the republicans are split, so they decide to share power. The republicans are officially in charge of the provisional government, and will control a four-man council of war, with Carlo Cattaneo himself as the head of government. However, the head of state will be Mayor Gabrio Casati, and the republicans agree to go along with Casati’s call for a constitutional monarchy. Surprisingly, Cattaneo is okay with this despite being a hardcore republican. For one thing, keeping Casati, the legal mayor, as head of state, maintains the appearance of a legal transfer of power. For another thing, other Italian states have just become constitutional monarchies, and are likely to support Milan if it’s demanding the same thing as them. Those same constitutional monarchies are unlikely to support a republic, and could even go to war against Milan. Plus, like we discussed, Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia is a constitutional monarch, and is Milan’s best bet if it’s looking for an ally against Austria.

        -While Milan’s leaders are organizing their provisional government, Field Marshal Radetzky’s troops begin an organized assault on the city center. Radetzky’s report continues:

        “When evening fell after six hours of firing in the streets, I decided at whatever cost to assault the town hall [he means the ducal palace] and destroy the Provisional Government at its center. This took us four hours and was bitterly contested. Finally, when most of the carpenters whom I was using to break down the main gateway had been wounded, we brought in twelve cannon with difficulty through narrow streets and broke in to become masters of the building. Over 250 prisoners were captured, including many with distinguished names, together with an important deposit of arms. Prisoners and arms were taken to the citadel.”

        -The assault on the ducal palace is only partially successful. While Milan’s provisional government is forced to flee and the Austrians take a bunch of prisoners, nobody of any real importance is captured, and Radetzky’s men, who now find themselves isolated deep in the city center, are at risk of being cut off. So the Field Marshal pulls them back too, and moves his headquarters to Milan’s old medieval citadel.

        -The next day, March 20th, is day three of the revolution, and intense fighting continues in the streets. The Milanese rebels have something like 600 to 700 guns in the entire city, while the Austrian soldiers are well-armed and there are something like 12,000 of them. But the rebels don’t fight like soldiers. They hide in the city’s apartment buildings and pop out from windows and shoot at Austrians from above. Unarmed men and women throw stones, roof tiles, and other random objects from several stories up, killing and wounding many soldiers. When the Austrians gather enough men in one area to overwhelm a particular barricade, the locals will simply drop back, regroup, and form another barricade a block or two up the road. To overcome this type of opposition, Radetzky resorts to artillery bombardment, and his big guns fire incessantly throughout the day, targeting first one hotbed of resistance and then another. Meanwhile, Austrian troops resort to a tactic that will be familiar to anyone who knows a thing or two about modern urban warfare. Rather than deal with constant demoralizing hit-and-run attacks from the buildings above them, they decide to avoid the streets as much as possible. They use improvised battering rams to break down apartment walls and move from one building to the next, as terrified families huddle to the side. And as you can imagine, this kind of fighting can sometimes devolve to something less than civilized. Mike Rapport writes:

        “Both sides would later claim that atrocities had been committed. The Milanese were said to have found an Austrian soldier carrying a severed woman’s hand, cut off for the rings on her fingers. Whole families were said to have been trapped and then burned alive by the Habsburg forces. The Austrians, meanwhile, claimed that one of their soldiers had been crucified to a sentry box, while others, captured by the Milanese, had been blinded. The very nature of the fighting means that claims of brutality (if not the grisly details) cannot be dismissed lightly, while the stories themselves – and the readiness with which they were believed – show how inflamed both sides were.”

        -Much of the fighting on March 20th represents an Austrian effort to form a perimeter around the city. Field Marshal Radetzky doesn’t want to engage in urban combat, and rather than fight the insurgents directly he wants to surround them and contain them. He even declares a state of siege in the afternoon, and he does successfully surround the city by the end of the day.

Early on March 21st, Radetzky sends a messenger to Milan’s provisional government offering them a truce. He tells them that if they fail to accept this truce, he’s going to bombard the city. Presumably he means he’ll bombard it indiscriminately, because by all accounts he’s been using his artillery on the insurgents the entire time. Anyway, Mayor Casati responds to this letter, and he refuses to agree to any type of truce. In part, this is because he’s trying to buy time. If Milan can hold out for just a little longer, Charles Albert and the Piedmont-Sardinian army might show up to save the day. As we’ll see in a second, this hope is pretty well-founded. But beyond that, Marshal Radetzky’s troops don’t have nearly enough control over the situation for him to be issuing ultimatums. He’s bluffing, and Gabrio Casati knows that he’s bluffing. As Radetzky himself writes in his own report:

        “I had no means of sending my dispatch because all communications out of Milan are cut off, and substantial forces are needed for sending or receiving news. Yesterday the fighting continued with great intensity and there must have been many casualties on both sides. I am still unable to give an account of my losses for I lack all details. The streets have been pulled up to an extent you can hardly imagine. Barricades close them by the hundred, even by the thousand. The revolutionary party is moving with a caution and cleverness which make it obvious that they are being directed by military officers from abroad. The character of this people has been altered as if by magic, and fanaticism has taken hold of every age group, every class, and both sexes. Yesterday morning I withdrew all troops in the city to the citadel, leaving only those barracks occupied with which we can still keep in touch. Nevertheless I control all the gates of the city. Generals Wohlgemuth and Clam are still holding their positions, and communications thus remain open from here to the gates. It was not possible to hold the inner positions any longer, for provisions and relief units could not get through without losses. Details on the various phases of the fighting are only partly known to me, or would take too long to recount.”

        -This isn’t a report from some junior officer. It’s from one of the most experienced military officers on the planet, a guy who’s been in uniform for over 60 years and fought in multiple battles against Napoleon, and it sounds like he’s on the verge of panic. This is understandable, since as Radetzky himself writes, he’s not even getting regular reports from some of his men. It’s also worth noting that he praises his troops for fighting so well through four days of rain, although he follows this up by saying he hopes the rebels will agree to a truce because his men are exhausted and need to rest.

        -Meanwhile, the Milanese are coming up with some ingenious ways to communicate, both inside and outside the city. In his book The Milan Insurrection of 1848, Carlo Cattaneo, who as a reminder is the head of the provisional government’s war council, writes:

        “To reconnoiter enemy movements on the bastions and outside the city, astronomers and opticians climbed into the observatories and the bell-towers; they sent down bulletins every hour. Instead of wasting time descending staircases… they attached their reports to a small ring which they lowered at the end of an iron wire. Cernuschi organized straight away a message system served by the pupils of the orphans’ schools… Recognizable by their uniform, they would slip rapidly through the crowds which gathered around the barricades, performing this service with as much intelligence as precision. Soon afterwards, someone thought of releasing small balloons carrying proclamations which would be spread across the countryside.”

        -Some of these balloons get out, and bands of peasants begin organizing in the Lombardian hinterland. And as dusk falls, Field Marshal Radetzky begins receiving troubling reports that his rural garrisons, which are small in number and usually quiet, are coming under attack from mobs of armed locals. Many of these garrisons are to the east, between his current location at Milan and his supply lines back to Austria. So now all of a sudden he has to worry about what to do if his rural garrisons are overrun and he gets cut off from communications, supplies, and reinforcements.

        -Soon after the rainy, pitch black night settles in, a secret messenger slips through the Austrian lines and through a side gate in Milan’s city wall. This messenger goes straight to the provisional government, bringing word from King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia. See, the rebels had sent word to him as soon as violence had broken out, telling him that the people of Milan were fighting against the Austrian Empire and asking if he would be willing to join them. Charles Albert has sent his answer, and he says that yes, he will help the Milanese rebels, but only on one condition. The provisional government of Milan must officially call on him for aid, in the name of Italian unity. Once again, the republican writer Cattaneo and the monarchist mayor Casati are able to come to an agreement. Rather than specifically call on Charles Albert in particular, they put out a blanket statement calling for all Italian states to rise up against their Austrian overlords. Milan is fighting, they say. Who will fight with us?

In his report to his superiors, Marshal Radetzky said that he suspects that the Milanese insurgents are getting help from foreign military officers. He’s mostly right, although in this time period it’s not unusual for professional soldiers to hop from country to country. After all, if fighting is your job, you’re going to work for countries that are actually at war. Add to this the fact that a number of revolutionaries have fought in previous revolutions in Greece, the Americas, France, and elsewhere in Europe, and it should come as no surprise that in a cosmopolitan city like Milan, you can find plenty of experienced military officers. As time goes on, these officers have slowly been organizing the insurgency. What started on March 18th as a hodgepodge of secret societies, clubs, and neighborhood watch-type groups has been metamorphosizing, and on the morning of March 22nd, the fifth day of the revolution, the Austrian troops are facing something resembling if not an actual army, then at least a respectable militia.

        -Early in the morning on the fifth day, the rebels launch a coordinated attack against a single gate in the city’s Renaissance-era Spanish walls, in an effort to break out of their encirclement. Mike Rapport writes:

        “The idea was not only to secure the city center but to open the gate to the Lombard insurgents who had been spotted in their hundreds in the distance pouring down from the hills. The fight began – after reconnaissance from the rooftops by Carlo Osio – at 7 AM, when the Italians started blasting cannon and fired from windows, rooftops, and behind garden walls at the Austrian positions on the gate, in the customs post and at the nearby Casa Tragella. The imperial troops replied with… rockets and one house burst into flames. The final assault took place under the ingenious protection of moving barricades. There was a bitter and murderous exchange of fire – Osio later said that he alone fired 150 cartridges. Manara and another aristocrat with democratic principles, Enrico Dandolo, were the first to make the final dash to the customs house, with the former waving a tricolor as the rest of the attackers surged on behind. They were cheered on by women watching from nearby balconies. The gate was beaten down and the triumphant Milanese, crossing the moat on the other side of the bastions, at last embraced the Lombard peasants and small-town artisans, led by local professionals and priests, who poured into the city. Radetzky’s siege had been broken.”

        -So the insurgents have broken through one of the city gates and linked up with some rebels from the countryside, while other rural rebels are threatening Radetzky’s supply lines. At the same time, King Charles Albert’s troops are massing on the opposite bank of the Ticino river, which marks the border between Lombardy-Venetia in the east and Piedmont-Sardinia in the west. Field Marshal Radetzky sums the situation up in his brief report for March 22nd, which reads in its entirety:

        “It is the most frightful decision of my life, but I can no longer hold Milan. The whole country is in revolt. I am pressed in the rear by the Piedmontese. All the bridges behind me can easily be cut, and I have no timber for replacing them. Similarly I have very little transport. What is going on in my rear I just do not know. I shall withdraw toward Lodi to avoid the large towns and while the countryside is still open.”

        -By the end of March 22nd, the Austrian army under Field Marshal Radetzky is falling back to the east, to a cluster of four fortresses known as the quadrilateral. We’ll leave him there for now, and get back to him next episode. For now, the Milanese provisional government is in complete control of the city and the surrounding countryside, and the rebellion is threatening to spill out over all of Lombardy-Venetia. There are already rumors of another nationalist uprising further east in Venice itself. Italian nationalists are ecstatic.

The next day, March 23rd 1848, they get more good news. That day, in response to the Milanese provisional government’s official request, King Charles Albert of Bavaria declares war on the Austrian Empire, and thousands of Piedmontese troops begin crossing the Ticino river. Ahead of these troops comes a proclamation to the people of Lombardy-Venetia, explaining Charles Albert’s reason for intervening. He says to the people:

        “The destinies of Italy are maturing, and a happier future is opening up for those who bravely stand up for their rights against the oppressor.

        “We, out of love for our common race, understanding as we do what is now happening, and supported by public opinion, hasten to associate ourselves with the unanimous admiration which Italy bestows on you.

        “Peoples of Lombardy and Venetia, our arms, which were concentrating on your frontier when you forestalled events by liberating your glorious Milan, are now coming to offer you in the latter phases of your fight the help which a brother expects from a brother, and a friend from a friend.

        “We will support your just desires, confident as we are in the help of God who is manifestly on our side; of the God who has given Pius IX to Italy; of God whose helpful hand has wonderfully enabled Italy to rely on her own strength.

        “In order to show more openly our feelings of Italian brotherhood, we have ordered our troops as they move into Lombardy and Venice to carry the Cross of Savoy imposed on the tricolor flag of Italy.”

        -Piedmont-Sardinia is going to war against Austria, and its troops are marching under a flag that bears two symbols. First is the green, white, and red of the Italian tricolor, its three bars borrowed from the French Revolution, representing an Italy free of foreign tyranny. Second is the Cross of Savoy, a white cross on a red field, which is the symbol of the House of Savoy, which is the royal family of Piedmont-Sardinia. Charles Albert is leading the charge for Italian unification, and from day one, he’s marrying the symbol of the new nation to the symbol of his own family. If he succeeds in his war against Austria, he plans to be king of a single, unified Italian nation.

        -But whatever its problems during the Five Days of Milan, the Austrian Empire is large and powerful, and for all his frailty and frequent seizures, Emperor Ferdinand I has a deep bench of talent to draw on to help save his empire. If these were normal times, Austria wouldn’t need to break a sweat to restore the pre-war status quo. But these are not normal times. Revolts are breaking out not just in Italy but all over the Austrian Empire – in places like Serbia and Slovenia, and even in Vienna itself. And further north in Germany, Prussia is taking advantage of revolutionary unrest elsewhere in the German Confederation to increase its own power at Austria’s expense. Central Europe is ready to explode. We’ll watch that explosion bloom in full, cinematic, Michael Bay-style glory in the next episode of Relevant History.

THIS TRANSCRIPT IS LINKED FROM: https://www.DanTolerPodcast.com/