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Italy Minus Unification.

Please, PLEASE try to ignore this TL's massive shittyness, and the fact it it was mainly copied off a wikipedia article. Its my first TL, and its so bad because the Unification of Italy was so enormously complicated. Once I get past this part though, it should get better. So, without further adiu, my TL:

[FONT=&quot]A Early History of the Italian Region [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Professor Victor Nguyen[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Lee[/FONT][FONT=&quot] University[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Richmond[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Confederate States of America[/FONT]

As Napoleon's reign began to fail, other national monarchs he had installed tried to keep their thrones by feeding those nationalistic sentiments, setting the stage for the revolutions to come. Among these monarchs were the viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais, who tried to get Austrian approval for his succession to the Kingdom of Italy, and Joachim Murat, who called for Italian patriots' help for the unification of Italy under his rule. Following the defeat of Napoleonic France, the Congress of Roma (1815) was convened to redraw the region of Italy. The Congress restored the pre-Napoleonic patchwork of independent Italian states and city states. The main points of the Congress of Roma were:

  • · Austria fails to regain control of the County of Tyrol. Austria did however, gain control of the former Illyrian Provinces; and the Tarnopol district (from Russia) .Lombardy-Venetia, and the Republic of Ragusa remain independent.
  • · Habsburg princes were returned to control of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Modena to ensure their survival.
  • · The Papal States were placed under the rule of the pope and restored to their former extent.
  • · The King of Sardinia was restored in Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy.
  • The recently restored Republic of Genoa remains free.
  • · The Duchy of Parma is absorbed into the Kingdom of Sardinia
  • · The Duchy of Lucca is created for the House of Bourbon-Parma.
  • · Joachim Murat is given control of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples.
  • Tuscany remains independent
  • Lands that were once the Republic of Venice are seized from Austro-Hungarian Possession, the ROV is restored
  • The Republic of Pisa is also restored.

The Failed Struggle for Unification
Seeing as how most heads of state in the Italian Region were of Hapsburg descent at that time, a cry for revolution against perceived Hapsburg Oppression soon spread amongst the peasant masses. Greater Italian Nationalism was gaining force, growing ever stronger as the people’s confusion at the many boundaries drawn by the Treaty of Roma. Many organizations sprang up advocating a Greater Italian Republic united by the Italian Language. The many Heads of State in the Italian Region vigorously repressed nationalist sentiment growing on the Italian peninsula. The Sardinian ambassador Emmanuel Risorgimento, an influential diplomat at the Congress of Roma, stated that the word Italy was nothing more than "a geographic expression." Regardless, intellectual sentiment also turned towards nationalism; and perhaps the most famous of proto-nationalist works was Alessandro Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi. Some read this novel as a thinly veiled allegorical critique of Fragmented Italian Rule . The novel was published in 1827 and extensively revised in the following years. The 1840 version of I Promessi Sposi used a standardized version of the Tuscan Dialect, a conscious effort by the author to provide a language and force people to learn it. Pro-Unification supporters also faced heavy opposition from the Republic of Venice, which was awash in a wave of patriotic pride at its restoration. Venetian death squads traveled all over the peninsula looking for “Greater Italians” as the Pro-Unification supporters called themselves. Even among the “Greater Italians”, different groups could not agree on what form a unified state would take. Ezio Firenze, a Piedmontese priest, had suggested a confederation of Italian states under rulership of the Pope. His book, Of the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Greater Italians, was published in 1843 and somehow created a link between the strongly Anti-Unification Papacy and Unification. Many leading revolutionaries wanted a republic, but in the end, they would soon find their cause to be pointless. One of the most influential revolutionary groups was the Carbonari (coal-burners), a secret organization formed in southern Italy early in the 19th century. Inspired by the principles of the French Revolution, its members were mainly drawn from the middle class and intellectuals. After the Congress of Roma divided the Italian peninsula among the customary ancient borders, the Carbonari movement spread into the Papal States, Sardinia, Tuscany, Modena, and Lombardy-Venetia. The revolutionaries were so feared that the reigning authorities passed an ordinance condemning to death anyone who attended a Carbonari meeting. The society was quickly stamped out as a result.
Two prominent radical figures in the unification movement were Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The more conservative constitutional monarchic figures included Count Cavour and Victor Emmanuel II, who would later be assassinated by Papal Agents.
Mazzini's activity in revolutionary movements caused him to be imprisoned soon after he joined. While in prison, he concluded that Italy could - and therefore should - be unified and formulated his program for establishing a free, independent, and republican nation with Rome as its capital. After Mazzini's release in 1831, he went to Tuscany, where he was intent on organizing a new political society called Young Italy. However, Mazzini was shot to death by a young Tuscan Nationalist.
Garibaldi, a native of Sardinia, participated in an uprising in Piedmont in 1834. He was sentenced to death, and executed March 17th 1834.
Revolutionary activity (1820–1830)
Carbonari insurrections (1820–1821)

In 1814 the Carbonari began organizing revolutionary activities.
Two Sicilies insurrection

In 1820, Spaniards successfully revolted over disputes about the constitution, which influenced the development of a similar movement in Italy. Inspired by the Spaniards, (who, in 1812, had created their constitution) a regiment in the army of the Kingdom of Two-Sicily’s, commanded by Guglielmo Pepe, a Carbonaro, mutinied, conquering the peninsular part of Two Sicilies. The king, Ferdinand I, agreed to enact a new constitution. The revolutionaries, though, failed to court popular support and fell to Genoan troops. Ferdinand abolished the constitution and began systematically persecuting known revolutionaries. Many supporters of revolution in Sicily, including the scholar Michele Amari, were murdered during the decades that followed.
Piedmont insurrection

The leader of the 1821 revolutionary movement in Piedmont was Santorre Di Santarosa, who wanted to remove the Hapsburg Rulers and unify Italy under the House of Savoy. The Piedmont revolt started in Alessandria, where troops adopted the green, white and red tricolore of the French Cisalpine Republic. The king's regent, prince Charles Albert, acting while the king Joachim Murat was away, approved a new constitution to appease the peasant revolutionaries, but when the king returned he disavowed the constitution and immediately requested assistance from the Duchy of Modena. Di Santarosa's troops were defeated, and the would-be Piedmontese revolutionary fled to Paris. It was at this time that all the small Republics, Duchies, Kingdoms, etc. on the Italian Peninsula formed the Independent Italian States Defense Alliance ( IISDA) to combat the “Greater Italian” terrorists.
The Last Insurrections, and a Dream Nearly Realized.

By 1830, revolutionary sentiment in favor of a unified Italy began to experience a resurgence, and a series of insurrections occurred that hoped to lay the groundwork for the creation of one nation along the Italian peninsula.
The Duke of Modena, Francis IV, was a steadfastly Pro-ISSDA noble, and he hoped to subvert the “Greater Italian” Movement. In 1826, Francis made it clear that he would quickly act against those who supported the unification of Italy. Fatally disregarding the declaration, revolutionaries in the region began to organize.
During the July Revolution of 1830 in France, revolutionaries forced the king to abdicate and created the July Monarchy with encouragement from the new French king, Louis-Philippe. Louis-Philippe had promised revolutionaries such as Ciro Menotti that he would intervene if the IISDA tried to interfere with “Greater Italian” activities. Fearing he would lose his throne, though, Louis-Philippe did not intervene in Menotti's planned uprising. The Duke of Modena arrested Menotti and other conspirators in 1831, and then proceeded to establish loyalty in his duchy with help from Pisan troops. Menotti was executed, and the idea of a revolution centered in Modena faded.
At the same time, other insurrections arose in the Papal Legations of Bologna, Forlì, Ravenna, Imola, Ferrara, Pesaro and Urbino. These would-be revolutions, which adopted the tricolore in favor of the Papal flag, quickly spread to cover all the Papal Legations, and their newly installed local governments proclaimed the creation of “The Republic of Greater Italy”. A combined Pisan and Luccan military force quickly swept into the so-called “Republic”, and crushed all opposition with ruthless efficiency.
The revolts in Modena and the Papal Legations inspired similar activity in the Duchy of Parma, where the tricolore flag was also adopted. The Parmese duchess Marie Louise left the city during the political upheaval, but returned after the put down of all Parmese Revolutionary activity.
Insurrected provinces planned had to unite as the Province Italiane unite (united Italian Provinces), which prompted Pope Gregory XVI to ask for Austrian help against the rebels. Austria warned Louis-Philippe that it had no intention of letting Italian matters be, and that French intervention would not be tolerated. Louis-Philippe withheld any military help and even arrested Italian patriots living in France.
In the spring of 1831, the Austrian army began its march across the Italian peninsula, slowly crushing resistance in each province that had revolted. This military action suppressed much of the fledging revolutionary movement, and resulted in the arrest and execution of many radical leaders, including Menotti. From that point on, the dream of a Greater Italy was in tatters, with almost all revolutionaries dead or in exile. Nationalism arose with a violent fury in the countries located on the Italian Peninsula, but it was for the already established countries there. A Luccan was now proud to be a Luccan, and a Venetian was proud to be a Venetian. Witch Hunts sprang up across the region looking for Unificationists, but none were to be found. Peace would exist for a few more years, but it wouldn’t be long until the Peninsula was a Warzone.
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