18. THE FIRST CAVOUR GOVERNMENT
The years between 1850 and 1860 were years of great economic, political, commercial and military development throughout the peninsula, especially in the north.
In 1850, after two years of constituent assembly, the Italian Confederation (IC) was proclaimed in Milan with the proclamation of Vittorio Emanuele II president of the Confederation inside the cathedral of Milan in an elaborate ceremony that would mark the birth of the first truly modern Italian state. Turin would have remained the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, the largest state of the confederation, but Milan would have become the capital of the IC since the structures to house the Confederate Parliament and the Confederate Senate were already present as well as the various ministries of the institution and the Sforzesco castle was renovated as a residence for the king when he visited the capital.
Cesare Balbo resigned from his position as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia citing the stress of managing and reorganizing the new territories and the new power that Piedmont found itself with. While resigning from his post he advised king Vittorio Emanuele II to pick Camillo Benso of Cavour as the successor of Balbo, citing both his exploit in the London conference and his very successful tenure of the ministers of commerce and finance during the premiership of Balbo. The king approved the decision and so Cavour was made Prime Minister of Sardinia and de facto premier of the Confederation in 1850. One of the first acts of Cavour was the foundation of the Liberal Federalist Party in Turin along with his political associates from various factions that decided to throw their lot along with the cunning new Prime Minister, to politically legitimize their rule by creating the first modern political party in Italy. With Sardinia Piedmont being the most powerful and richest state of the peninsula it was obvious that the Confederal Parliement would come under the dominance of the Piedemontese government, which now included many Lombards and Venetians like Carlo Cattaneo which became Minister of Confederal Affairs in the Cavour government; this dominance was not an oppression: the other states still retained some kind of political freedom and control on their internal affairs but were all oriented towards the north which was the guarantor of the Confederation.
Cavour during his first government
Cavour's first action as Prime Minister was a diplomatic outreach to European nations to establish political, diplomatic and commercial ties: Cavour's idea was of an rapprochement with France and Great Britain as guarantors of the Confederation against Austria, showing Italy as a reliable commercial partner and indispensable ally. Strong ties were established especially with the French Republic which agreed to a bilateral trade agreement to lower tariffs, especially on products such as coal and iron, while the London financiers showed themselves willing to provide loans at very low rates by virtue of the bonds that Cavour had established in the British Empire during his summer stay. The main enemy remained Austria. The Confederation began to spread all over the world with embassies in Europe, America and the Middle East.
With secured access to raw materials and capital, the government concentrated its efforts on the industrialization of the country on the English model, with the construction of numerous railway lines such as Turin-Venice and Turin-Rome which helped to bring them closer and closer. the population. The construction of railways facilitated trade and the concentration of industries in large production centers especially where the industrialization process was already underway as in Piedmont, Lombardy and Tuscany: Milan, Turin, Florence and Genoa became industrial and commercial centers interconnected thanks to the large railway network; the agrarian reform functionally reorganized the land ownership in an integral and capitalist way, according to which the countryside had to efficiently produce the resources to be allocated to the cities that would transform and ship them abroad to be sold, leaving masses of peasants who migrated to the cities where they became the first urban proletariat. In Milan the Confederate stock exchange opened, an institution already present since the times of the Austrians, in which the first debt securities and the first listed companies on the market such as the railways were treated, this financial concentration would lead Milan to become the economic center of the Confederation.
Thanks to the effective economic policy of Cavour, Lombardy and Piedmont started seeing rapid industrialization in their lands
Industrialization and economic growth had given rise to social changes that had to be addressed quickly by the government which had the constitutional duty to provide education to its citizens. Of course, this education was a basic and not yet complete education, addressed to the literacy of the population and the spread of Italian culture with the adoption of Confederal teaching methods. The increase in literacy also gave impetus to a cultural change, a transition from the old local dialects to a language which, although still in training, was taking on definite and universal characters as well as an ever wider understanding by the population; this was followed by the production of literal works, the most famous of which is undoubtedly Alessandro Manzoni's
Promessi Sposi, which became one of the best-selling books in the Confederation, which will be worth the title of the "Book that made Italy". The cultural flourishing was not only literary but also artistic, scientific and philosophical concentrated in the cities of Milan, Venice, Florence and Rome which confirmed to be great Italian cultural centers.
After half a decade Cavour became interested in the issues of the urban proletariat after there were some signs of Marxist worker unrest in the main national factories. The count intended to protect the masses from the red spectre, directing their ideology towards a post unitary patriotism that saw the Confederation as the center of Italy's political and social life. So it was that to avoid a widespread anger of the working classes against the government and the industrialists who were making a great contribution to the progress of the country, Cavour issued the "Labor Code" one of the first codes on the matter, in which employers were obliged to ensure a minimum wage (even if low) to their employees, together with minimum safety conditions, child labor was restricted to certain not excessively dangerous professions, reiterating that children had to go to school and not to the factory and the creation of the first labour unions was allowed, subject to control by the Carabinieri to avoid the infiltration of red elements. The Labor Code relaxed the situation and prevented social unrest, making the count gain prestige among the masses.
Carlo Alberto died of liver failure in 1849. The last years of his life had been blessed by the victorious war against Austria but cursed by the clash between the state and the church that greatly anguished the monarch. At his death a monumental funeral was organized in Turin in which dignitaries and foreign leaders participated thanks to the enormous prestige that the man had accumulated and his body was sent for a tour of the main cities of the Confederation before being buried in the chapel of the Savoy. Vittorio Emanuele II was crowned king of Piedmont and president of the Confederation on the death of his father. At the coronation Cavour suggested to the king and his wife, Maria Adelaide, to start a tour of both the Confederation and the European courts to present the Savoy family as probable masters of Italy; the initiative had great success especially in Great Britain where Vittorio Emanuele II made a good impression with Queen Victoria. The departure of the king allowed the Prime Minister to implement his plan of separation between state and church, commissioning Giuseppe Siccardi to draft the famous "Siccardi laws" aimed at the abolition of the medieval privileges of the clergy, the suppression of the mendicant monastic orders and the expropriation of most of the church's land and real estate properties which were used as collateral for new loans taken from London. Only medical orders were spared and the inability to reach an agreement with the conservatives prevented the promulgation of civil marriage laws. The pope and the prelates loyal to him responded with encyclicals and excommunications while the lower clergy and some bishops, especially in the north, were in favor of this reorganization feeling the need of the church to be an ally of Italy rather than an antagonist, creating a fine division within the Italian Catholic community. When Vittorio Emanuele II returned from his tour in Italy and Europe he demanded to review the laws but never threatened to fire Cavour, the man was too important for his own sake.
Vittorio Emanuele II, king of Sardinia and president of the Confederation
The reorganization of the armed forces also began. The first act was the establishment of the Italian Confederal Navy, obtained through the merger of all the pre-unification naval forces and the start of a naval industry in Genoa, La Spezia, Piombino and Palermo aimed at the construction of steamboats with which to replace the old ones sailing ships. The Confederal Army was also created on paper, while in reality the real creation of a unique combat force would come years later: the Italian armies were divided: there were the Piedmontese who had the best equipment and training, the Tuscans, the Sicilians and Romans, each trained and armed in their own way with particular strategies and tactics. The creation of a central command was necessary to begin the organization and General Bava became the first chief of staff. Given the success of infantry specialties such as the Bersaglieri Alessandro LaMarmora was commissioned to expand the body to two divisions that would become the army's spearhead and Giuseppe Garibaldi was contacted by the army to train guerrilla units of which he was an expert.
In 1859 the Rattazzi Law was issued, the first Confederal administrative reorganization that established 7 constituent states of the Confederation: the Kingdom of Sardinia, made up of it's original territory and the two duchies of Lombardy and Veneto/Verona which were annexed following the victorious war in 1848, the military and industrial powerhouse of the peninsula; the Republic of Venice, along with much of the old dogado, a bit bourgeois and focused on trade in the Adriatic and promoting it's charme as an island city; the United Provinces of Emilia and Romagna, a still minly agrarian republic established after the escape of the rulers of Emilia outside Italy and the revolts in Romagna, its landowners hold much sway over the population but the throught land reform has reduced their influence, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, notoriously the only state still ruled by a Von Habsburg in Italy, on it's way to become an industrial region; the Principality of Adria; the Roman Republic, which was the main opponent of Sardinia's dominance thanks to the influence of Mazzini and not much else since the region is underdeveloped and the Kingdom of Sicily, one of the most important areas of the Confederation due to it's strategic location and the energy of his king Ferdinand who survived a grave illness and was on it's way to recover.
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Italy in 1860 following the Rattazzi Law, courtesy of @Drex