Ferdinand, the “Liberal Years”: 1845-1847
To be fair, our title is a bit misleading. The expression “the liberal years” is to be more properly referred to the shift towards liberalism that Charles Albert’s politics took in 1845 and skyrocketed after the election of the “liberal” Pope Pius IX in 1846. For if this led to a general upsurge in Italian nationalism and flourishing of proposals to unite somehow Italy, for Charles Albert it was the clear occasion to conciliate his faith with his own political goals (with the former being far clearer than the latter). But what about Ferdinand? Was he the whole-hearted, gallant liberal we are taught in elementary school? He probably became something close to this bright image at a young age, but this is not to say that he was born that way. There is an illuminating passage in his diary, dated February 1846:
“I have always been better with ideas and things rather than with people. Complicated they may appear to most, theorems and artillery pieces are way simpler to understand. They do not get angry, they do not feel hunger, they do not cry, they do not bleed. They have a simple, stark beauty. I could have lived a happy life as a scholar, even as an artillery commander. But I am to be king, and a king has to care and provide for his people; and to do this, a king needs to understand his people. I am not sure Father does. I wish he had had some good friends (or any friend at all) like me to help him through. I would not be the man I am today without Camillo and Albert.”
Camillo and Albert being, of course, Camillo of Cavour and Albert of the United Kingdom. While the relationship between Ferdinand and the former is more celebrated, it may be argued that the (mostly epistolary) friendship with the latter was just as important. Albert was a liberal and an innovator at heart, and his views on social and educational matters were largely reflected by Ferdinand’s later politics as a King. But truth to be told, for the years 1845 through 1847 Ferdinand’s main concern was the Army, with little to no intervention on the political and social reforms his father implemented from 1845 onwards. The only documented direct intervention by Ferdinand was to urge his father to sign the preliminary agreement of the Customs Union proposed by Pope Pius IX in 1847 to the Kingdom of Sardinia and the GranDuchy of Tuscany. Charles Albert was indeed dubious whether to sign or not, for his commitment “body and soul to the cause of the Italian Unification” (as he famously wrote to Cesare Balbo) was shifting to a commitment to somehow enlarge his own Kingdom. Ferdinand simply pointed out the contradiction of proclaiming oneself adept to the neo-welf ideals by Gioberti (who envisioned a confederal Italy led by the Pope) as his fathers did and at the same time, forestalling the Pope’s very first initiative to unite the Peninsula. Besides, Ferdinand continued, Sardinia-Piedmont was the one who would benefit the most (despite the bad harvests of 1845 and 1846 and the subsequent economic setback that hit Europe, the northern Kingdom had by far the largest economy of the three soon-to-be members). The final argument was maybe the most decisive: if Sardinia was to expand, it was eastwards, at the expense of the Austrians, so what harm could there possibly be in an economical agreement whose only possible outcome was to make all of Central Italy into a Sardinian economic satellite? And the agreement was signed. The events of 1848 then prevented the Custom Union to be fully enforced, let alone show its benefits. However, given the outcome, we might say that in this case, God, more than laughing at the plans made by man, was merely smiling.
This particular episode shows that Ferdinand’s view of the Italian Unification was a careful, federal approach, with Northern Italy united from Nice to the Isonzo, with the possible addition of the Emilian Duchies. As Cavour wrote in 1847: “When I was young and ambitious, it was natural for me to think that I would wake up, someday, as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy. Now that I am a more sensible grown-up, I might be as happy waking up as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Upper Italy (Regno dell’Alta Italia).”
It must be pointed out that all of these proposals and ideas would have probably remained such (or a wet dream at best) if it weren’t for the gradual yet steady reforms the Sardinian Army had been undergoing since 1840. In this respect, Ferdinand’s role was pivotal as was his choice of collaborators. His frequent voyages and confrontation with international friends (chiefly his brother-in-law Henri, in this regard) made him utterly aware of the fact that the Sardinian Army was lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of doctrine, tactics, and weaponry. His main contributions, which proved to be crucial in 1848, were in each and any of these directions. It was him who suggested abandoning the Napoleonic-style three-line tactic in favor of the modern two-line tactic for the infantry, which favored firepower and gave a greater ability to maneuver on the field. The first to implement this idea was LaMarmora, with his Bersaglieri. Created by LaMarmora himself in 1836, this elite light infantry corp was created to overcome the Sardinian lack of cavalry. The adoption of the two-line tactics, which itself increased firepower, and their enhanced weapons (of which we will give a more detailed account shortly) made the Bersaglieri on of the finest troops in Europe, to the point that Radetzki had to admit that they were “light artillery with handguns, light cavalry without horses, demons without horns but with black feathers.”
This would have not been possible if not for the introduction of better weaponry, in the form of needle guns and the Verdi bullet. The Verdi (oblong, flattened at one extremity and with a hole running through most of the bullet) was an adaptation (conceived under Menabrea’s guidance in the School of Artillery) of the Greener bullet invented by London gunsmith Mr. William Greener. The Greener bullet had come to Ferdinand’s attention in 1840 when the Prince went to buy a hunting rifle in Greener’s shop and got interested in the craftsman job. The gunsmith, flattered by Ferdinand’s interest and impressed by the Prince's knowledge of weaponry, showed all his creations to him.
This episode is largely instructive on the man Ferdinand was: good at understanding things (not even the British government had seen such potential in a bullet) and always keen on learning something, even when going on a hunt.
