The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany Part 3

Colonel Regis, the leader of the Const.i.tutional forces, succeeded in reaching Novara before Della Torre had begun his advance. The armies met outside the town; but in the middle of the battle the news arrived that the Austrians had crossed the Ticino and were marching into the country. Regis and Ferrero fought gallantly; but the double forces against them were too strong; and though they once or twice repelled the Austrian attack, the want of discipline of the Piedmontese soldiers, combined with the superior force of the enemy, led to a crushing defeat. Santa Rosa, finding it impossible to defend Turin, retreated first to Alessandria and then to Genoa; but the men on whom he relied had lost courage and hope; and he and such of his friends as were fortunate enough to reach Genoa were soon obliged to leave it again and to fly from Italy, most of them to fight in foreign countries for the liberty which they had lost at home.

The reaction set in with the greatest fury. In Piedmont the system of espionage was resumed with double force. The University was closed.

Under the influence of favouritism, and in the absence of any free expression of public opinion, corruption of tribunals revived, and the Jesuits, who had lost power during the Liberal interregnum, speedily recovered it. In Naples, the Austrians, after recommending mildness to Ferdinand, yielded to his demands for the right to punish; and the sense of his dishonourable position seems to have called out in him a savagery which he had not previously shown; while the presence of the Austrian troops irritated the country into a state of intermittent insurrection.

Lord William Bentinck attempted a protest in the English House of Commons against a second destruction of Sicilian independence; but Castlereagh defeated the motion, and Sicily fell back under Neapolitan rule.

Metternich specially devoted himself to restoring order in Lombardy. He established an Aulic Council at Vienna to superintend the affairs in that province, so as to crush out still further any local independence.

At the same time a special committee was formed at Milan to enquire into the conspiracy. Several leading conspirators were arrested. One tried to save his friends by confessing his own fault; but the confession was used as a new clue by the police. Confalonieri was urged to save himself by flight; but he answered, "I will not retire in face of the storm which I wish to confront. Let what G.o.d will become of me!" He was soon after arrested; and, after being kept in doubt of his fate for nearly two years, he was condemned to death. His case excited sympathy even in Vienna, where the Empress interceded for his life; and at last, after long entreaty, his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Spielberg. There Metternich in vain tried to extort from him the betrayal of his fellow-conspirators. But the crafty statesman little knew the result of this treatment. One of those who suffered imprisonment about the same time describes the effect of Confalonieri's influence by contrasting him with the head of the Austrian police in Lombardy. "Confalonieri and Salvotti seemed to represent, in the eyes of the Milanese, the angel of Liberty and the demon of Slavery, striving not more for the success of their respective causes than for the triumph of their individual personalities. About Confalonieri gathered the prayers of honest people, of men of feeling hearts, who saw in him an unfortunate persecuted being whom adversity clothed with all the l.u.s.tre of devotion and courage."

This pa.s.sage strikingly exhibits that n.o.ble, but illogical, popular instinct which so often confuses the hero and martyr with the mere victim of unjust oppression. Confalonieri had undoubtedly organized an insurrection, and his arrest and imprisonment might fairly be justified by the ordinary rights of self-defence which exist in every Government. Yet the instinct of horror and pity for this imprisonment had a truth deeper than logic. Under the system of government then prevailing, the prison or the scaffold was the natural place for such men; but the pity of it was that a system of government should prevail which logically necessitated the imprisonment of Confalonieri and the triumph of Metternich. And it was a sign of the deep folly of the latter that he called the attention of the public to this fact, and provided the cause of Italian unity with its first prominent martyr.

The stories of Confalonieri's imprisonment spread from mouth to mouth, and were preserved as tender memorials. It was told, for instance, how, when his wife had visited him, he had tried to preserve the cushion on which her tears had fallen, and how the guards had insisted on taking it from him; how his friends had devised a plan for his escape, and he had refused to avail himself of it because his fellow-prisoners would not be able to escape with him; and lastly, of the continual pressure which had been brought to bear upon him to reveal the secrets of his fellow-conspirators, and his steady refusal to purchase health and liberty by their betrayal.

The defeat which despotism had sustained by the imprisonment, and still more by the persecutions, of Confalonieri would hereafter be plain. At present Metternich might think that he had conquered in Lombardy; but elsewhere he could not feel sure of victory, for there came to him at this time two unmistakeable warnings that he was no longer to be allowed to reign undisturbed in Europe.

Even at that very Congress of Laybach which succeeded in crushing out the independence of Naples, the question of Greece, which could not be so easily disposed of, came before the Powers, and puzzled considerably the mind of Metternich. The pietistic maunderings of Alexander might be made use of in defence of the rights of Roman Catholic kings, but he could not be persuaded that the principles of the Christian religion justified him in supporting the tyranny of the Turks over Christian populations. He had indeed abandoned the Wallachian leader, Alexander Ypsilanti, when he discovered that the rising in Wallachia was simultaneous with the risings in Naples and Piedmont; but the Greeks could not so easily be persuaded that their patron, the Czar of Russia, had deserted their cause.

The Hetairiai of Wallachia and Greece had done the same work which the Carbonari had accomplished in Spain and Italy; and on April 4, 1821, the Greeks suddenly rose at Patras and ma.s.sacred the whole Turkish population. In three months the southern part of Greece was free; and by January, 1822, a Provisional Government had been formed, with Alexander Mavrocordatos at its head.

Religious feeling, cla.s.sical sentiment, and the loathing of the barbarous rule of the Turks combined to rouse in Europe an amount of sympathy which Metternich could not afford to disregard. He admitted the right of Alexander of Russia to sympathise with the Greeks, both on the ground of Christian sentiment and on the pretext of rights granted by previous treaties with Turkey; and he even intervened diplomatically to secure concessions from the Porte to its Christian subjects.

But, though he felt the danger of the precedent which even this amount of concession to the revolutionary spirit would cause, Metternich yet believed that, by timely compromise and judicious diplomacy, he could bring back Alexander to sounder principles. The influence of Capo d'Istria was indeed an antagonistic power in the Court of St.

Petersburg; but, on the other hand, Tatischeff, the rival minister at the Russian Court, seems to have been a mere tool of Metternich, and could be used effectively for the interests of Austria.

So successfully did this diplomacy work, in Metternich's opinion, that on May 31, 1822, he writes exultingly in his memoirs, that he has "broken the work of Peter the Great, strengthened the Porte against Russia, and subst.i.tuted Austrian and English influence for Russian in Eastern Europe." So he wrote in May; in August of the same year "that upright and enlightened statesman," Lord Londonderry, committed suicide. Then George Canning became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and hastened to cut the knot which linked the interests of Austria with those of England.

The change in England's policy soon became evident. No doubt the feeling of dislike to Metternich had been gradually growing in that country. Its representatives had held aloof even from the Congress of Laybach; and when, in 1822, the Powers met again at Verona to encourage the French Cabinet in their attempt to restore Ferdinand of Spain, England entered a decided protest against the proceedings of the Congress. Nor did the protest remain a barren one. The invasion of Spain by the French was followed by the recognition of the independence of the Spanish colonies by England; and when the absolutist movement threatened to spread to Portugal, Canning despatched troops to protect the freedom and independence of that country.

It is amusing to note the growth of Metternich's consciousness of the importance of the opponent who had now arisen. "A fine century," he writes at first, "for these kinds of men; for fools who pa.s.s for intellectual, but are empty; for moral weaklings, who are always ready to threaten with their fists from a distance when the opportunity is good."

But in the following year he writes: "Canning's nature is a very remarkable one. In spite of all his lack of discernment, the genius which he undoubtedly has, and which I have never questioned, is never clouded. He is certainly a very awkward opponent; but I have had opponents more dangerous, and it is not he who chiefly compels me to think of him." And in 1824 he sums up this difficulty, satisfactorily to himself, in these words: "What vexes me with the English is that they are all slightly mad. This is an evil which must be patiently endured, without noticing too much the ludicrous side of it."

This outburst of insanity on the part of England naturally drove Metternich back into the arms of Russia; and this change became more congenial to him when, in 1825, the fickle Alexander died and was succeeded by the stern despot Nicholas.

It seemed, too, as if the Greek rising might end about that time in the success of the Turks. Ibrahim, the Pasha of Egypt, had come to the rescue of the Sultan, and was carrying all before him. Marco Botzaris, the chief general of the Greeks, had been killed in battle; and in 1826 the garrison of Messolonghi blew up their fortress and themselves to avoid surrendering to the Egyptian forces.

But Metternich soon found that, whatever objection Nicholas might have to revolution elsewhere, he felt as much bound to protect the Greeks as had Alexander before him; and in August, 1827, Nicholas consented to Canning's proposal that England, France, and Russia should send a fleet to the Bay of Navarino to enforce an armistice between the Greeks and the Turks. Then followed the celebrated battle which Wellington afterwards described as "that untoward event." This convinced even Metternich that the results of the Greek insurrection would have to be recognized by the Powers, and perhaps even secured by force. The Russian war of 1828 followed, and Metternich had to admit that the European alliance of 1814-15 was practically broken.

But though the effect of the Greek insurrection in weakening the chances of Metternich's system was certainly important, it soon began to be doubtful whether the change would be permanent. England, indeed, in spite of the death of Canning and the short rule of Wellington, was evidently hopelessly lost to the cause of despotism. But the revolutionary movements of 1830-31 seemed to leave far less trace of freedom in Europe than the previous risings of 1820-22. The July monarchy of Louis Philippe was soon forced to become Conservative; and the Belgian revolution seemed to have little connection with the other movements of Europe. The Polish rising and its sudden collapse only secured Nicholas to the side of despotism. The treachery of Francis of Modena to Ciro Menotti destroyed for a time the tendency to believe in revolutionary princes. The rising in Bologna, by compelling the intervention of the Austrians, strengthened their hold over the Papacy, and even enabled Metternich cheaply to pose as the adviser of reforms which, out of respect for the independence of the Papacy, he would not enforce.

But his greatest triumph of all was in Germany. There Const.i.tutions had been proclaimed in Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Saxony; and Metternich resolved to follow up the Carlsbad Decrees by a still more crushing enactment. So it was decided at the Federal Diet of 1832 that a German prince was _bound_, "as a member of the Confederation, to reject pet.i.tions tending to the increase of the power of the Estates at the expense of the power of the Sovereign," and further, "that the internal legislation of the States belonging to the German Confederation should in no case be such as to do prejudice to the objects of the Confederation."

Thus Metternich had again triumphed; but it was for the last time. Two forces of very different kinds were already in motion, to undo the work of his life. Two men were about to cross his path, very different from each other in moral calibre, in width of sympathy, and in the means at their disposal, but alike in that power of reaching the heart of a People, for want of which the leaders of the previous Liberal movements had failed in their objects. These men were Giuseppe Mazzini and Louis Kossuth.

CHAPTER III.

FAITH AND LAW AGAINST DESPOTISM. 1825-1840.

Tuscany under Fos...o...b..oni.--"Il Mondo va da se."--The Antologia.--Romanticism v. Cla.s.sicism.--Domenico Guerrazzi.--Giuseppe Mazzini.--His early career.--His experiences as a Carbonaro.--His plans in the fortress of Savona.--His first banishment.--Louis Philippe and the Italian Revolutionists.--Collapse of the rising of 1831.--Accession of Charles Albert.--Italian belief in him.--Mazzini's letter.--Charles Albert's position.--Mazzini's second banishment.--His influence.--La Giovine Italia.--Its enemies and friends.--Charles Albert's cruelties.--The expedition to Savoy.--Menz and Metternich v. Mazzini.--The special position of Hungary.--The County Government.--The Germanization of the n.o.bles.--The Diet of 1825.--Szechenyi.--The Magyar language.--Material reforms.--Metternich and Szechenyi.--Wesselenyi.--The Transylvanian Diet.--Poland and Hungary.--Serfdom in Hungary.--The Urbarium.--Francis Deak.--Wesselenyi at Presburg.--Louis Kossuth.--His character.--His first work.--Arrest of Kossuth and Wesselenyi.--The protest.--Metternich's defeat.

While Piedmont and Naples had been vibrating between revolution and despotism; while the government of the popes had been steadily growing more tyrannical and unjust; and while the rulers of Parma, Lucca, and Modena had remained (with whatever occasional appearance to the contrary) the mere tools of Austria, the government of Tuscany had retained a peculiar character of its own.

The vigorous programme of reform, introduced by Leopold I. when the government first pa.s.sed into the hands of the House of Austria, had not been further developed by his successors. But a tradition of easy-going liberality had been kept alive both under Ferdinand III.

and Leopold II. Fos...o...b..oni, the chief minister of Tuscany, took for his motto "Il mondo va da se" (the world goes of itself); and thus a certain liberty of thought and expression continued to prevail in Tuscany that was hardly to be found in other parts of Italy.

This might have excited the alarm of the Austrian Government, and of the other princes of Italy; for conspirators condemned by them took refuge in Tuscany. But two circ.u.mstances protected this freedom. The fact that the ruler of Tuscany was a member of the House of Austria seemed to exclude him from the chance of ever becoming the leader of a purely Italian movement; and Metternich was, perhaps, not sorry to be able to show the opponents of Austria that an Austrian prince could be the most popular ruler in Italy. Secondly, Fos...o...b..oni, while so easy-going in internal matters, maintained a dignified independence in foreign affairs; and Ferdinand and Leopold had enough of the spirit of the founder of the dynasty to second the efforts of their Minister.

Thus, when the Austrian officials sent to Ferdinand a list of the Carbonari in Tuscany, with the request that he would punish them, he simply burnt the list; and when, on the death of Ferdinand in 1824, the Austrian Minister demanded that Leopold's accession should not be publicly notified until the terms of the notice had been approved by Austria, Fos...o...b..oni at once announced Leopold's accession as the only answer to this insolent demand. Lastly, in 1831, when the Austrians were trampling out the liberties of Bologna, Fos...o...b..oni prevented them from extending their aggressions in Italy by an invasion of Tuscany.

Here, then, it was natural that the thought of Italy, whether taking a literary or political form, should find its freest expression. The Conciliatore of Manzoni and Confalonieri had been suppressed in Lombardy, but its work was revived by the Florentine journal called the "Antologia." Manzoni's influence gained much ground here among the literary men, who connected the struggle between the old cla.s.sicism of Alfieri, and the freer and more original writing to which the name of Romanticism was given, with the struggle for a freer life in Italy against the traditions of the past.

The writer who attracted the most attention, and whose name became most widely known among the Romantic School, was Domenico Guerrazzi.

It is, perhaps, a little difficult for an Englishman to understand the attraction of this author's novels; but an Italian writer thus explains it: "The singularity of his forms and the burning character of his style, the very contradiction of principles that are perceived in his writings, gave to Guerrazzi the appearance of something extraordinary, which struck upon imaginations already excited by misfortunes and grief." Moreover, perhaps, Guerrazzi, more definitely than most of these writers, connected the literary movement with the political; and even in Tuscany he became an object of some alarm from his desire for Italian freedom.

He naturally gathered round him a knot of young men of more decided type than the ordinary contributors to the "Antologia;" and it was to him, therefore, that the proposal was addressed to revive in Leghorn a Genoese journal which had been just suppressed by the Sardinian Government. The proposal was probably made to Guerrazzi in the first instance by a young and enthusiastic Livornese named Carlo Bini; but the chief promoter of the enterprise was a young Genoese of between twenty and thirty years of age.

This youth was chiefly known as having recently sent to the "Antologia" at Florence an article on Dante which had been rejected by them, but which was subsequently inserted in another paper. Among his contemporaries at the University the new comer had already excited an enthusiasm which was not yet understood by the outer world. Such was the first appearance in public life of Giuseppe Mazzini.

Under the influence of a very earnest and remarkable mother, he had early been interested in the cause of Italian liberty, and he dated his first impression of the importance of this cause from an interview with one of the exiles who was about to leave Italy on account of his share in the struggle of 1821.

Mazzini had been intended by his father for the profession of the law; but he had already shown a decided preference for literature and politics; and while still at the University he had been influenced by the gloomy romance of Jacopo Ortis. But, though that strange book had deepened his feeling for the miseries of his country, the scepticism and despair which were its keynote could not long hold him in slavery.

On him, as on all the greatest minds of Italy, Dante soon gained a powerful hold; and while he profoundly admired the "Divina Commedia,"

he learned from the "De Monarchia" that mystic enthusiasm for Rome and that belief in the theological basis for political principles which was to colour so deeply his later career.

The journal which, with Guerrazzi's help, Mazzini started at Leghorn was called the "Indicatore Livornese." It soon became so alarming even to the mild Tuscan Government that after some warnings it was suppressed.

Shut out for the moment from the literary expression of his faith, Mazzini turned to more directly political action. He felt that it was his duty to make use of whatever existing machinery he could find for carrying on the struggle for Italian freedom; and he therefore joined the Carbonari. The very formula of the oath which was administered to him, on entering this Society, seemed to suggest the inadequacy of this body for stirring up the faith of a people. For, instead of speaking of work to be done for the freedom or unity of Italy, the words of the oath merely exacted implicit obedience to the Order.

Mazzini's spirit revolted alike against this slavery, and against the solemn buffooneries with which the rulers of the Order tried to impress those who joined it with the sense of its importance.[3] His irritation at the uselessness and tyranny of the Carbonari brought on him the stern rebuke of some of their leaders.

The July Insurrection of 1830, in France, woke new hopes in Mazzini, as in other Italians; but before he could join in any active movement, he was arrested at Genoa, and, without trial, was soon after imprisoned in the fortress of Savona. The explanation given to Mazzini's father, by the Governor of Genoa, of the reasons for this arrest affords a striking picture of the despotism of the time. The Governor said that Giuseppe was a young man of talent, very fond of solitary walks by night, and habitually silent as to the subject of his meditations; and that the government was not fond of young men of talent the subject of whose musings was unknown to it. The real cause of the arrest was Mazzini's connection with the Carbonari, which had been betrayed by a pretended member of the Society, who, however, declined to support his charge in public.

It was during this imprisonment that Mazzini came to the conclusion that the Society of the Carbonari had failed to accomplish the purpose for which it was founded, and that some new organization was required in its place. While he was considering the objects which such an organization should set before itself, there arose before his mind the idea of Italian unity. The failure of the local efforts of 1821 and 1831 had been due to the want of common action between the different Italian States; and the mystic enthusiasm for Rome supplied a poetical argument in favour of the practical conclusion which he drew from these failures. While too the treachery of Charles Albert and of Francis of Modena had left on Mazzini a deep-rooted distrust of kings, and inclined him to believe that a republic was necessary to solve the difficulties of his country, he was willing, as will presently appear, to accept any leader or form of government which should bring about the unity of Italy. Anarchy he loathed with all his heart. He thoroughly disliked the French doctrine of the Rights of Man; and he desired to a.s.sert authority when legitimately established.

But the great distinction between Mazzini and the other political leaders of his time was, that his aim was not merely to establish a form of government, but to imbue the people with a faith. The unity of Italy was not with him a mere political arrangement, but the working out of G.o.d's government over the world, a development of a n.o.bler and better life.

This affected his att.i.tude to the question both of the relation of cla.s.ses to each other, and of the relation of Italy to the rest of Europe. Though he appealed to the working men of Italy with an effect that no previous politician had produced, he never appealed to them on the ground of purely selfish interests; for he felt that the special motives for improving their condition should always be subordinated to the general welfare of the nation. And it is a striking proof of the extent to which this side of his teaching has taken hold of his followers, that, in the demonstration to his memory at Genoa in the year 1882, among the banners borne in the procession, and inscribed with quotations from his works, was one on which were written the words "Fight not against the bourgeoisie, but against egotism, wherever it grows, under the blouse of the workman, as under the coat of the capitalist."

Italy too was to help in the regeneration of Europe, but not after the manner of the French Republic, by merely establishing a foreign tyranny, calling itself Republican, in the place of native kings.

Patriotism, with Mazzini, was not the hard, narrow thing which it became in the minds of too many of the leaders of the revolution. The Peoples were to help each other in developing their own national life after their own fashion, and to respect each other's national claims as they claimed respect for their own.[4]

After long delay Mazzini was acquitted of the charge laid to him, no evidence being brought forward against him. Thereupon the Governor of Genoa appealed to Charles Felix to set aside the decision of the judges, and to condemn Mazzini. The King consented; and Mazzini was ordered to choose between banishment from Italy and confining himself to a place of residence in one of the small towns in the centre of Piedmont. He believed that the former alternative would offer him freer scope for action; and he sailed for France.

The hopes of the Italian exiles had been roused, first by the July Revolution in France, and secondly by the risings at Modena and Bologna. General Regis, who had played such an important part in the Piedmontese insurrection of 1821, was organizing with other exiles an expedition, composed of Italians and French, to go to help the insurgents who were still holding out in Bologna.

But the hopes of the insurgents were doomed to disappointment. Louis Philippe, after playing with them for some time, came to the same sagacious conclusion about Revolution that he afterwards announced with regard to war, viz., that to talk about a.s.sisting a Revolution, and to a.s.sist a Revolution, were two different things.[5] Just as the expedition was on its march, orders were issued to abandon it, and a body of cavalry were sent to enforce the command. Some abandoned the attempt; but Mazzini and a few friends escaped to Corsica, which was still Italian in feeling, though French in government; and there they hoped to organize an expedition to help the Bolognese.