The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany Part 4

The Bolognese, however, though gallant enough in their own struggles, were unwilling to commit themselves to a wider programme than the defence of their own State. So they refused to send to Corsica the money which was necessary for the expeditionary force. The Austrians soon after entered the Papal territory; and when they had crushed out the insurrection they were in many cases welcomed by the inhabitants as a protection against the cruelties of the Papal troops.

Two other points in the insurrection alone need notice. One was, that at the surrender of Ancona Terenzio Mamiani, already known as a philosophic writer, refused to sign the conditions of capitulation, and was consequently forced to go into exile. The other was that, while the representatives of the Pope showed themselves, as a rule, utterly reckless in violating the conditions under which the surrender of the towns was made, one honourably distinguished himself by keeping his word. This was the Governor of Imola, Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, afterwards Pius IX.

The movement, however, in spite of its scattered and disconnected character, had excited attention in Piedmont, and several leading Piedmontese Liberals had determined to press Charles Felix to grant a Const.i.tution. Of these Liberals, the most remarkable were Angelo Brofferio, the future historian of Piedmont; Augusto Anfossi, hereafter to play so brilliant a part in the rescue of Milan from Austria; and Giacomo Durando, whose book on Italian nationality was afterwards to hold an honourable place among the writings which stirred up Italian feeling. The conspiracy was, however, discovered; the leaders of the movement were arrested; and, while the prisoners were still awaiting their trial, Charles Felix died, and Charles Albert succeeded to the throne.

During the time between the failure of the insurrection of 1821 and his accession to the throne, Charles Albert's only important public act had been his service in the French Army, which was suppressing the liberties of Spain. Yet, in spite of this act of hostility to the Liberal cause, and in spite of the recollections of his previous desertion in 1821, the Liberals still had hopes that he would become their champion.

This is a fact which requires more explanation than can be found in the mere desire on the part of the reformers of Italy to choose some King to lead them against Austria. After the treachery of Francis of Modena, no Liberal expected _him_ to return to the cause which he had deserted; and, when Francis of Naples had succeeded Ferdinand I., none of the pa.s.sing hopes, which had pointed him out in earlier life as a possible const.i.tutional champion, could save him from the hatred which his tyranny deserved.

Nor must we be misled by the subsequent history of Italy into the theory that there was anything special in the traditions of the kingdom of Sardinia which should lead Liberals to fix their hopes on a ruler of that country. Victor Amadeus of Sardinia had been the foremost of the allies of Austria in the war against the French Republic; and though there were continual causes of irritation between the aggressive House of Austria and the rulers of the little monarchy, these were not of a kind to have attracted the sympathy of any large body of Liberals outside Piedmont. The only movement for the unity of Italy, previous to the movement of 1821, had come from Naples; unless, indeed, Eugene Beauharnais had intended Lombardy to be the centre of a similar attempt.

When we take all these points into consideration we must come to the conclusion that there was something in the personal character of Charles Albert which riveted the attention of Italian Liberals almost in spite of themselves; nor could any appearances to the contrary induce them to doubt that he had at heart a desire for the liberty and unity of Italy such as no previous Italian Prince had entertained.

It was, perhaps, the greatest proof of this strange fascination that Mazzini, Republican as he was, yet thought it well to yield to the strong feeling of the Liberals of Italy, and to give Charles Albert one more chance of playing the part of a leader.

Mazzini, therefore, addressed to the new King a letter in which he called his attention to the enthusiasm with which his accession was greeted. "There is not a heart in Italy whose pulse did not quicken at the news of your accession. There is not an eye in Europe that is not turned to watch your first steps in the career now open to you." He told him that the Italians were ready to believe that his desertion of their cause was the mere result of circ.u.mstances; and that, being at last free to act according to his own tendencies, the new King would carry out the promises that he had first made as a Prince. He warned him that a system of terror would only provoke reprisals; and that a system of partial concessions would not only fail to satisfy the wishes of the people, but would have an arbitrary and capricious character which would increase the existing irritation. "The people are no longer to be quieted by a few concessions. They seek the recognition of those rights of humanity which have been withheld from them for ages. They demand laws and liberty, independence and union.

Divided, dismembered, and oppressed, they have neither name nor country. They have heard themselves stigmatised by the foreigner as the Helot Nation. They have seen free men visit their country, and declare it the land of the dead. They have drained the cup of slavery to the dregs; but they have sworn never to fill it again." Mazzini then calls on Charles Albert to put himself more definitely at the head of a movement for Italian Independence, and to become the King of a united Italy. The letter concludes with these words: "Sire, I have spoken to you the truth. The men of freedom await your answer in your deeds. Whatever that answer be, rest a.s.sured that posterity will either hail your name as the greatest of men, or the last of Italian tyrants. Take your choice."

Before we consider Charles Albert's answer, we must call to mind, once more, his position. He came to the throne in the very crisis of a conspiracy against his predecessor, and had hardly been able to realize what had been the intention of the conspirators towards himself. The Duke of Modena, who had plotted to remove him from the succession (a proposal discussed at some length in the Congress of Laybach), had just recovered his own Dukedom by Austrian help, and was no doubt watching with eager eyes any false step which his rival might make. Charles Albert, with all his liberal sympathies, was proud of being a prince of the House of Savoy; and he was surrounded by the courtiers of Charles Felix, who must have persuaded him that the dignity and independence of that House could only be maintained by opposition to the movement for reform.

There was, too, another influence which must never be forgotten in estimating the difficulties of Charles Albert. He was a strong Roman Catholic, at a time when the connection between reverence for the Pope and reverence for the Church was, perhaps, closer than it had been at most previous periods of the history of the Papacy. The commonplace tyrannies of Leo XII. and Pius VIII. had not wholly dispelled the halo which the heroic att.i.tude of Pius VII.'s early days had shed round the Papacy; and it seems highly probable that the most puzzling act of Charles Albert's life, his share in the French invasion of Spain, had been due, to a large extent, to that strong religious sentiment which gathered in so peculiar a manner round the kings of Spain. A man influenced by such sentiments could not fail to remark that the most vigorous and determined of the insurgents of 1831 had directed their attacks against the Papacy; and it might well seem to him that a letter which called on him to oppose the Austrian restorers of the papal power was the utterance of an enemy to the religion of the country.

But the fact was, as Mazzini afterwards confessed, that any king who was to undertake the work which he had suggested to Charles Albert must possess at once "genius, Napoleonic energy, and the highest virtue. Genius, in order to conceive the idea of the enterprize and the conditions of victory; energy, not to front its dangers--for to a man of genius they would be few and brief--but to dare to break at once with every tie of family or alliance, and the habits and necessities of any existence distinct and removed from that of the people, and to extricate himself both from the web of diplomacy and the counsels of wicked or cowardly advisers; virtue enough voluntarily to renounce a portion at least of his actual power; for it is only by redeeming them from slavery that a people may be roused to battle and to sacrifice."

If such were the qualities required by any prince who undertook this office, what must have been needed from one who had to contend with a Power which had ten years before helped to crush out the aspirations of his people, and which was just then triumphantly ruling in the centre of Italy? A man of genius might have undertaken the task; Charles Albert was only a man who "would and would not." But, if Charles Albert refused to listen to Mazzini's appeal, he had no alternative but to protest against it; and he did so by banishing Mazzini, under pain of imprisonment if he should return to Italy.

Nevertheless, the letter had produced its effect on the nation. The demand for the unity of Italy had been openly and definitely made, and put forward as a boon to be struggled for by Italians, and not to be conferred by a foreign conqueror. The attention of the youth of Italy was at once attracted to the writer of the letter, and none the less that he was an exile. The personal fascination which he exercised even over casual observers may be gathered from the following letter, which seems to refer to this period. It was written by one of his fellow-exiles, describing his first sight of Mazzini in the rifle ground at Ma.r.s.eilles.

"I went into the ground, and, looking round, saw a young man leaning on his rifle, watching the shooters, and waiting for his turn. He was about 5ft. 8in. high, and slightly made; he was dressed in black Genoa velvet, with a large Republican hat; his long curling black hair, which fell upon his shoulders, the extreme freshness of his clear olive complexion, the chiselled delicacy of his regular and beautiful features, aided by his very youthful look, and sweetness and openness of expression, would have made his appearance almost too feminine, if it had not been for his n.o.ble forehead, the power of firmness and decision that was mingled with their gaiety and sweetness in the bright flashes of his dark eyes, and in the varying expression of his mouth, together with his small and beautiful moustache and beard.

Altogether, he was at that time the most beautiful _being_, male or female, that I had ever seen, and I have not since seen his equal. I had read what he had published; I had heard of what he had done and suffered, and the moment I saw him I _knew_ it could be no other than Joseph Mazzini."

It was under such auspices that the Society of Young Italy was founded. The general drift of the principles of that Society has already been sufficiently indicated in the account of Mazzini's meditations in the fortress of Savona. It was to make Italy free, united, Republican, recognizing duty to G.o.d and man as the basis of national life, rather than the mere a.s.sertion of rights. But the great point which distinguished it from all the other societies which had preceded it was that, instead of trusting to the mysterious effect of symbols, and the power of a few leaders to induce the main body of Italians blindly to accept their orders, it openly proclaimed its creed before the world, and even in the articles of a.s.sociation set forth the full arguments on which it grounded the defence of the special objects which it advocated. And the principles were further to be preached in a journal which was to be called, like the Society, "Giovine Italia."

But while he put forward a definitely Republican programme, Mazzini never fell into the French mistake of thinking that a knot of men, monopolizing power to themselves, can, by merely calling themselves Republicans, make the government of a nation a Republic. While he fully hoped, by education, to induce the Italians to accept a Republican Government, he was quite prepared to admit the possibility of failure in that attempt, and to accept the consequence as a consistent democrat. This is distinctly stated in the first plan of Young Italy.

"By inculcating before the hour of action by what steps the Italians must achieve their aim, by raising its flag in the sight of Italy, and calling upon all those who believe it to be the flag of national regeneration to organize themselves beneath its folds--the a.s.sociation does not seek to subst.i.tute that flag for the banner of the future nation."

"When once the nation herself shall be free, and able to exercise that right of sovereignty which is hers alone, she will raise her own banner, and make known her revered and unchallenged will as to the principle and the fundamental law of her existence."

Plentiful as was the scorn and misrepresentation showered upon Mazzini and his doctrines, the two years from 1831 to 1833 brought a vast number of supporters to the Society of Young Italy; and the revolutionary movement in other countries gained organization and definiteness of purpose from this model. In the meantime, the Government of Louis Philippe was becoming more and more definitely committed to the cause of reaction; and every kind of slander was being circulated by Frenchmen against the Society of Young Italy. The theory that this Society undertook to exterminate all who disobeyed its orders was supported, by attributing to its action any casual violence which might take place in the streets of Paris; and though Mazzini prosecuted one of these slanderers for defamation a few years later, and compelled him to make a complete retractation in the law courts, the slander was too convenient to be allowed easily to drop.

On the other hand, men of the older type of revolutionist, who had drawn their ideas from the first French Republic, and had afterwards hoped to find their realization in the methods of the Carbonari, objected to Mazzini as "too soft and German" in his ideas.

But nevertheless some who were afterwards known in other ways came forward to contribute to the Journal of Young Italy. Amongst them may be mentioned the historian Sismondi and a future opponent of Mazzini, the Abate Vincenzo Gioberti. By 1833 the Society had established centres in Lombardy, Genoa, Tuscany, and the Papal States, and it was resolved to attempt an invasion of Savoy.

For, in spite of the promises which Charles Albert had held out of reforms in the government, the prosecutions for the conspiracy of 1831 were being carried on with renewed rigour, and the prisons of some of the chief towns of Piedmont were filled with men in many cases arrested on the barest suspicion, and who were threatened with death if they would not reveal the secrets of their fellow-conspirators.

Such cruelties were used to extort confessions that Jacopo Ruffini, a young friend of Mazzini's, committed suicide in prison for fear he should be compelled to betray his friends.

The news of these acts quickened the eagerness of the Italians for the invasion of Savoy, and they desired to co-operate with men of other countries. Among these, there were few from whom they expected so much sympathy as the Poles. Unable to organize successful insurrections in their own country, the Poles were scattered over Europe, a revolutionary element in every land in which they were to be found. They, like the Italians, had at first expected sympathy from the July monarchy in France. They, too, had been bitterly disappointed. But this had not prevented them from maintaining a centre at Paris; and many of those who had fought in vain in 1830 for the liberty of Poland came back to Paris to learn there what further was to be done.

Amongst these came a man named Ramorino, a Savoyard by birth, who had acted as a general in the Polish struggle of 1830. The part which he had played in that insurrection was only known very indistinctly to most of the Italians who were organizing the new expedition; but the mere fact that he had been a leader in a war for liberty was enough to make them desire his help. Mazzini had gathered from the Polish exiles the opinion generally held of Ramorino by those who knew the facts of the insurrection of 1830. He found that the reputation which Ramorino had held at that period was very low, both for trustworthiness and military ability; and he opposed his election as leader of the expedition to Savoy. The only result of the opposition was a charge against Mazzini of personal ambition.

The expedition had already been weakened by the opposition of one of those fanatical revolutionists who had before denounced Mazzini as too soft and German in his ideas. This man, who bore the honoured name of Buonarotti, had complained of the members of the expedition for admitting men of n.o.ble rank and some wealth to the position of leadership in it, and he had succeeded in detaching from the movement an important section of its supporters. Mazzini, therefore, saw that, under these circ.u.mstances, to lose the friends of Ramorino would ruin the chances of the expedition; and, feeling that any further opposition would only excite division, he consented to act with Ramorino.

The new leader soon showed his true character by hindering the expedition as long as possible; but in February, 1834, he yielded to the pressure of Mazzini and began the march. Unfortunately, Mazzini was seized with a fever on the route, and Ramorino, finding this obstacle to his treachery removed, ordered the columns to be dissolved and rode away.

Plenty of scorn was heaped upon the failure of this first expedition of Young Italy. But Metternich, at any rate, judged more truly. In April, 1833, he had written to the chief of his spies in Lombardy to warn him against the growth of a new revolutionary party, and particularly against the advocate Mazzini, one of the most dangerous men of the faction; and he told him to procure copies of the journal called "La Giovine Italia," and two copies also of Mazzini's pamphlet about guerilla warfare. Menz, the spy in question, while believing that the journal of Young Italy was losing ground, yet considered that it was the most dangerous of the newspapers which circulated in Lombardy.

This request of Metternich's was, indeed, made a few months before the actual invasion of Savoy, and Menz, no doubt, began to think that after that failure the power of Mazzini would decline; but it is tolerably clear that Metternich did not share that delusion, and kept his eye steadily on the new leader. Nor did even Menz believe that mere repression would now suffice to win the sympathies of the Lombards to Austria, and he proposed to divert the intellectual zeal of disaffected Lombards into a direction favourable to the State by offering prizes for the solution of questions in different branches of human knowledge. From the winners of these prizes, he thought, might be chosen professors, inspectors, and directors of studies, and encouragement might be given to compositions of poems and paintings, of which "the subject, and even the colour," was to be dictated by Government.[6]

He further proposed that, with this object, an Academy of Poetry should be founded in Lombardy, under the absolute direction of the Austrian Government, who are to see that the nation should take part in an intellectual movement "with a correct view, and that these productions of the imagination, bearing the impress of a tendency profitable to the well-being of society, would, in their turn, act in a very favourable manner on the public spirit."

Further, as "the Circus was in the time of the Romans the secret means of the State for rendering the people submissive to the Government,"

... so "the Austrian Government should give a very generous subsidy to the theatre of La Scala (at Milan); but it would be also desirable that it should make some sacrifice for the provincial theatres." A few modifications of the Austrian code, some reduction on customs duties, and lessening of the restrictions on pa.s.sports, are also suggested in the Report. Such were the means by which the trusted servant of Metternich hoped to counteract the influence of Mazzini and Young Italy.

But in the meantime another form of opposition to the power of Metternich was growing up in a country very different from Italy, both in its circ.u.mstances and the character of its people.

While, in all other countries of Europe, Metternich looked upon every approach to self-government with suspicion, and tried to crush it out either by force or diplomacy, both he and Francis recognized that in Hungary there were reasons for maintaining and even encouraging Const.i.tutional feeling.

For here the Const.i.tutional rights did not rest upon any revolutionary basis; at any rate, not upon any revolution of modern times. They were not connected with the sort of national aspirations which made the movements in Italy and Germany so alarming to Metternich. There was, as yet, no desire here to redistribute the country according to popular aspirations; all rights rested on clearly defined laws handed down from a distant past, and in many cases these rights had been the subject of a peaceable contract between the previous rulers of the country and the House of Austria. So much was this felt by Francis that he even appealed on one occasion to the Hungarian Diet for sympathy against the revolutionary methods of Liberal leaders of other countries.

But, indeed, had the liberty of the Hungarians depended, like that of other nations, on the a.s.sertion of the power of a central parliament, they might have been crushed as the other peoples had been; for from 1813 to 1825 no Diet met in Hungary. But the full force of Hungarian liberty dwelt in the organization of those county a.s.semblies which the Magyars had probably derived from the conquered Slavs. The Government could not enforce its laws except through the county officers, all of whom, with one exception, were elected by the landholders of the district. That one Government official was bound to call together once a year a meeting of the n.o.bles and clergy of the county. _There_ the wants and grievances of the district were discussed, and orders were sent to the representatives of the county in the Diet at Presburg to introduce bills to remedy those grievances.

These county a.s.semblies could raise taxes and levy soldiers; and they not only possessed, but exercised the right to refuse to obey the orders of the King himself if, after discussion, such orders proved illegal.

In the county elections all freeholders of Hungary had votes; and in the smaller village elections the suffrage was still wider. The electors in the villages chose, not only legislators, but judges of their village concerns. The non-freeholding peasantry were, indeed, often oppressed; the towns were in a backward state as regards self-government; but yet this system of county organization secured a wider diffusion of general interest in political affairs than prevailed in any other country of Europe.

At the same time, there were elements in Hungary which might give Metternich some hopes that he could drain out the forces of Hungarian liberty. The Magyar n.o.bles were drawn more and more to Vienna; and a process of Germanization was going on of so effective a kind that many of the n.o.bles had almost forgotten their own language. Thus, though the Magyar aristocracy had more often acted as champions of independence than the n.o.bles of any other country in Europe, they were gradually being drifted away from the main body of the people, and were becoming absorbed in the ranks of Austrian officialism. But when the Spanish Revolution of 1820 began to stir men's minds, the discussions in the Hungarian county a.s.semblies took a wider range, and representations were made to Francis which he could not long resist. He did not at first, indeed, realize the full force of the opposition, and in 1822 he tried to levy new taxes on the Hungarians without summoning the Diet. But this attempt failed, and in 1825 the Diet at Presburg was once more called together.

It seemed, indeed, to some of those who afterwards played a prominent part in the struggles of 1848 as if little was gained by this Diet; and as if it was even less satisfactory than its predecessor of 1791.

But a movement was inaugurated on this occasion which, though it may have contained in it the seeds of future misunderstanding, and even of civil war, was yet in its beginning as n.o.ble in its intention as it was necessary to the welfare of Hungary; and, had it been pursued in the spirit of its first leader, might have produced in time all the blessings which have since been secured to Hungary, without any of those terrible divisions and bitternesses that hinder those blessings from producing their full effect.

The leader of this new movement was Count Stephen Szechenyi, a member of one of the great families of Hungary. His father had held office at the Court of Vienna, but had grieved over the process of denationalization which was going on among the n.o.bles of Hungary.

Count Stephen was early trained to sympathize with the desire for the restoration of Hungarian life. He saw that the withdrawal of the great n.o.bles from Hungary to Vienna led to the mismanagement of their estates, the growth of an evil cla.s.s of money-lenders, and the separation between the aristocracy and the rest of the nation.

The abandonment of the Magyar language was, in his eyes, the great source of all evil; and the Diet of 1825 afforded him the first opportunity of protesting against it. While the Hungarian n.o.bles talked German in private, they used Latin in the management of public affairs; and Szechenyi, as a protest against this practice, spoke in the Magyar language in bringing forward a question in the House of Magnates.

But, before the Diet had risen, he gave a much more solid proof of his zeal for his native tongue. On November 3rd, 1825, he offered, in the House of Magnates, to give a whole year's income, 60,000 gulden, to found a Society for promoting the Study of the Magyar Language. His example was followed, with more or less zeal, by other n.o.bles; and in 1827 a Hungarian Academy was established by Royal Decree.

The movement which Szechenyi had stirred up was in danger of being brought to ridicule by some of its supporters, for Count Dessewfy actually proposed that a law should be pa.s.sed forbidding the marriage of any Hungarian maiden who did not know her native tongue; but this was resisted as too strong a measure.

But though Szechenyi opposed these wilder schemes of his supporters, he was none the less ready to use all possible attractions for carrying out his chief object, the drawing Hungarian n.o.bles back to their country. As one of these means, he established a horse-race at Pesth, and founded a union for training horses. He promoted, too, the material advantages of Hungary by introducing steamships on the Danube.

The work to which he devoted most attention was the erection of a suspension bridge, to connect Pesth with Buda. Szechenyi's enthusiasm in this matter seemed to many ludicrously disproportionate to the result to be obtained; but the fact was that he intended this work to give the opportunity for the first blow at that great injustice, the exemption of the Hungarian n.o.bles from taxation. If he could induce the Magnates to consent that the burden of so important a national undertaking should fall in part upon them, they might be willing hereafter to accept a more just distribution of the whole burdens of the State.

While, however, Szechenyi was labouring to promote Hungarian national life, and was willing to sacrifice personal comfort, and any unjust privileges of his order, for the sake of that object, he remained essentially the Conservative Magyar Magnate. He not only shrank from any movement for Const.i.tutional reform, but even hoped to accomplish his ends with the sympathy of the Austrian Government.

It was not indeed that he was deficient in courage, or in the tendency to speak his mind plainly in private conversation. He said boldly that "the promises of the King are not kept, that the law is always explained in favour of the King to the disadvantage of the people; and, to speak plainly, affairs just now have the appearance as if the Const.i.tution were being overturned." And in the same conversation he further nettled Metternich by suggesting to that statesman that his high position might prevent him from seeing some things.