Russia joins the 1859 Austro-Italian War

In principle, you might have a point. In practice, Austria was isolated diplomatically after their indecisive behaviour in the war of Crimea where they had managed to discontent both sides (and Prussia was still smarting from the humiliation of the Punctuation of Olmutz). France had also officially notified Austria that crossing the Ticino would be considered a casus belli. In this situation handing over an ultimatum to Piedmont was pure arrogance and declaring war was even worse. In many ways, it was a prequel of Austrian behaviour in June 1914, and probably with even less justification

But that's kind of my point: Austria was diplomatically isolated and would, by agreeing to the terms without reservation, be walking into a conference with no cards to play and every other power sans Britain intent on ruling against her. Does that, on the ground at the time, sound better than demonstrating their willingness and ability to defend their basic territorial integrity? This isen't the same as 1914, where there was no immediate military threat, demand to cede territory, and the demands were explicitly unreasonable. Austria has every right to say Lombardy is theres and Piedmont has no right to it, and that adding them to the Great Power fold is a gross unbalancing of the Concert of Europe. Thwy have no reason to expect to get better results from the Congress.
 
But that's kind of my point: Austria was diplomatically isolated and would, by agreeing to the terms without reservation, be walking into a conference with no cards to play and every other power sans Britain intent on ruling against her. Does that, on the ground at the time, sound better than demonstrating their willingness and ability to defend their basic territorial integrity? This isen't the same as 1914, where there was no immediate military threat, demand to cede territory, and the demands were explicitly unreasonable. Austria has every right to say Lombardy is theres and Piedmont has no right to it, and that adding them to the Great Power fold is a gross unbalancing of the Concert of Europe. Thwy have no reason to expect to get better results from the Congress.
The inclusion of Piedmont in the conference would have been limited to the Italian question only. Austrian policies in Lombardy-venetia (excessive fiscal pressure, refusal to support infrastructure building, censorship, political trials with heavy sentences) had significantly disaffected the population. The fact that the Italian question was again at the centre of European diplomacy just 10 years after the insurrections of 1848-49 is the best prove that the Austrian approach was not working. They might have tried to woo back the people and they didn't; they might have looked for a diplomatic soft landing with the loss of Lombardy compensated by an Italian confederation under the presidency of the pope which might have safeguarded Austrian interests in the rest of Italy and they refused the very idea; the only answer they had was to send an ultimatum and declare a war that they could not win
 
As far as the brain trust in Vienna was concerned, losing with honor seemed to be preferable to compromise or reform in this era.

Consider this. Vienna was sucking money out of L-V to prop up absolutism in the empire as a whole. Loss of this revenue is going to cause a financial crisis requiring concessions
Isn’t this exactly what happened after the honorable loss in 1859?
 
Why wouldn't they consider siding with the Austrians because the Italians (at the time Sardinia) fought with the British and French against them in the Crimean War?
The Russians were openly hostile to the Austrians in 1859 and their diplomatic efforts were focused on keeping the minor German princes neutral
No, it was not and Alexander's reforms were at the very beginning (emancipation of the serfs did not start yet, construction of the railroads only started, military reforms will start only in 1861) and state's finances would not allow a new major war.

Why not? If the war is fought in Austria, the Russians are foraging for free. War wasn't that much more expensive than peace and Napoleon often made it pay for itself

Unless someone intervenes, a Russo-Austrian war with the Austrians being beaten in Italy would be quick and easy
 
The inclusion of Piedmont in the conference would have been limited to the Italian question only. Austrian policies in Lombardy-venetia (excessive fiscal pressure, refusal to support infrastructure building, censorship, political trials with heavy sentences) had significantly disaffected the population. The fact that the Italian question was again at the centre of European diplomacy just 10 years after the insurrections of 1848-49 is the best prove that the Austrian approach was not working. They might have tried to woo back the people and they didn't; they might have looked for a diplomatic soft landing with the loss of Lombardy compensated by an Italian confederation under the presidency of the pope which might have safeguarded Austrian interests in the rest of Italy and they refused the very idea; the only answer they had was to send an ultimatum and declare a war that they could not win

Again, I ask why Austria would expect to be able to negotiate such a soft landing in such a hostile international climate if the mere diplomatic protests/complaints of a minor power was seen as sufficent to drag her to the negotiating table without so much as a peep with the expectation of handing over her most lucrative province and legitimize Italian Ethno-Nationalism as ground on which territory can be claimed (An ideal which, if allowed to stick and taken to its conclusion, rip away such much of Austria as to make her Great Power position strategically untenable). Without at least demonstrating some kind of strength, with every other state actively hostile to her, what other choice did she have. 48' left Austria with a very big problem: namely, that the Revolt had robbed her of a pool of dependable/loyal intellectuals on which to build a non-absolutists beuracracy by devolving power back to the localities, leaving them with the choice of either drawing all authority into Vienna or risk handing power to treasonous actors in a geopolitical climate where they can't count on internal stability (you can't buy them off or pay for in depeth assimilation/integration policies of creating a new beuracracy whole cloth, due to lack of funds). She's stuck in a REALLY bad position, and had to pick the least bad out of a bunch of rotten positions. from which she decided to take a gamble.
 
Could Vienna do...nothing? Is the wimpy Sardinian army doing exercises enough to warrant the ultimatum and war that brought in France? Presumably the Franco-Sardinian agreement would lapse and Cavour would be denied his war.

In general what is untenable for Austria is absolutism and they are going to have to get creative in making internal alliances and yes, concessions. It is what they did utimately with Hungary.

As for Russia why intervene if France will do the job of beating Austria? Also there is a recurring theme of Russia taking Galicia and I don’t think they ever wanted that. What else would be the motivation?
 
Again, I ask why Austria would expect to be able to negotiate such a soft landing in such a hostile international climate if the mere diplomatic protests/complaints of a minor power was seen as sufficent to drag her to the negotiating table without so much as a peep with the expectation of handing over her most lucrative province and legitimize Italian Ethno-Nationalism as ground on which territory can be claimed (An ideal which, if allowed to stick and taken to its conclusion, rip away such much of Austria as to make her Great Power position strategically untenable). Without at least demonstrating some kind of strength, with every other state actively hostile to her, what other choice did she have. 48' left Austria with a very big problem: namely, that the Revolt had robbed her of a pool of dependable/loyal intellectuals on which to build a non-absolutists beuracracy by devolving power back to the localities, leaving them with the choice of either drawing all authority into Vienna or risk handing power to treasonous actors in a geopolitical climate where they can't count on internal stability (you can't buy them off or pay for in depeth assimilation/integration policies of creating a new beuracracy whole cloth, due to lack of funds). She's stuck in a REALLY bad position, and had to pick the least bad out of a bunch of rotten positions. from which she decided to take a gamble.

I fail to see how any agreement which might or might not be reached at the Powers' Congress might end up being worse than what happened by going to war.
Besides the events of the war, which forced FJ to ask for an armistice just two months after the declaration of war, the ducal houses in Italy collapsed like house of cards almost immediately (Leopold of Tuscany left Florence on 27 April, the Borboun of Parma on 7 June and the duke of Modena on 9 June).
After the peace of Zurich, Austria had effectively lost any control or influence in Italy, and - worse than that from an Austrian perspective - the door was wide open for the proclamation of the united Italian state in 1861. At the Congress, Austria would probably loose Lombardy, but would likely to gain some assurances over the other territories or protectorates in Italy.

The lesson was not even understood in Vienna. Between 1860 and 1865 the Austrians consistently rebuked any French attempt to mend fences, further alienated Russia by its refusal to support them during the Polish insurrection and ended up being played by Bismarck and defeated in 1866.
Not even that was enough to change the nature of the empire (although at least FJ learnt the lesson that wars were not good business, and refrained from new adventures until 1914), but went though the road of Ausgleich which didn't prove to be truly effective to say the least.
 
Out of curiosity... what should Nicholas I have done instead of aiding the Austrians?

How about letting the Hapsburgs to deal with their own problems? Or to help the Hungarians? If it was OK with his principles to help the Greeks rebelling against their legitimate monarch or to support an obvious disloyalty of the Danubian Principalities then why rebellion against the Hapsburgs was less kosher, especially if Russia could gain from its victory?
 
He wanted to have (and thought he had!) both Austria and Prussia in his back pocket. He helped Austria but it was kind of a humiliating sort of help. Austria would have untlimately subdued Hungary without Russia—it just would have taken longer.
 
But to back the original question, I feel even if Russia was in a position to intervene, I feel they wouldn't. On one hand, they'd be helping the country that betrayed them, on the other, they'd be helping the countries they just lost a war with at the beginning of the decade. I think it was a smart move to say, "To hell with all of you."

How about letting the Hapsburgs to deal with their own problems? Or to help the Hungarians? If it was OK with his principles to help the Greeks rebelling against their legitimate monarch or to support an obvious disloyalty of the Danubian Principalities then why rebellion against the Hapsburgs was less kosher, especially if Russia could gain from its victory?

Except Nicholas I justified the Greek rebellion and disloyalty in the Danubian Principalities as "helping Christians (and Orthodox Christians to boot) rebel and gain independence from a "heathen" Islamic ruler." By having those countries in his back pocket, it would make the dream of claiming Tsargrad for Orthodox Christendom all the more easier.

Though I do agree, backing the Hungarians would've had a stronger and more palpable ally than the Austrians, but that's just hindsight talking.

He wanted to have (and thought he had!) both Austria and Prussia in his back pocket. He helped Austria but it was kind of a humiliating sort of help. Austria would have untlimately subdued Hungary without Russia—it just would have taken longer.

Debatable, considering that it's not just Hungary that Austria had to deal with (there were also revolutions in their German lands (those who wanted Cisleithania as part of a Greater German Empire/Republic) not to mention the pan-Italian movement in Lombardy-Venetia.) Granted Hungary themselves also had to deal with their own counterrevolutions (in Slovakia and Vojvodina) but I feel that the 1848 Revolutions could have gone either way in the Habsburg Domains.
 
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I fail to see how any agreement which might or might not be reached at the Powers' Congress might end up being worse than what happened by going to war.
Besides the events of the war, which forced FJ to ask for an armistice just two months after the declaration of war, the ducal houses in Italy collapsed like house of cards almost immediately (Leopold of Tuscany left Florence on 27 April, the Borboun of Parma on 7 June and the duke of Modena on 9 June).
After the peace of Zurich, Austria had effectively lost any control or influence in Italy, and - worse than that from an Austrian perspective - the door was wide open for the proclamation of the united Italian state in 1861. At the Congress, Austria would probably loose Lombardy, but would likely to gain some assurances over the other territories or protectorates in Italy.

I can. Considering those "assurences" are bound to be bunk, if mostly domestic problems are being considered sufficent justification to violated the "assured" balance established at Vienna and re-affirmed in 48' and are being given by powers that are hostile to them and they just demonstrated Vienna is unwilling/unable to even attempt a defense of herself. If Piedmont gets Lombardy, the Austrian position in Centeral Italy is critically undermined as they're already losing ground to Prussia in Germany (Prussia winning the customs union contest and directing all Germanic commerce into herself). Even if Austria knew she would lose the war the way she did (not guranteed, and if she smashed Piedmont and blunted French advances she could negotiate from a better position and dissuaded more incursions onto her Italian territories for the immediate future... and actually given Pius enough of a security gurantee to make raising the Papal Federation option politically viable), at a Congress where the goal was to reach a solution to the Italian Question she could easily be handed and ultimatium to give up Lombardy and Veneto... and now have to fight Russia and Prussia too if they balked at complying. As we see historically, Lombardy and Centeral Italy wasn't enough to satiate the desires of the other powers; not half a decade later Napoleon was poking at them to hand over Venice as well and Italy leaped on the first chance she had. Vienna might not be interested in war, but war was most certainly interested in her.
 
Except Nicholas I justified the Greek rebellion and disloyalty in the Danubian Principalities as "helping Christians (and Orthodox Christians to boot) rebel and gain independence from a "heathen" Islamic ruler." By having those countries in his back pocket, it would make the dream of claiming Tsargrad for Orthodox Christendom all the more easier.

Though I do agree, backing the Hungarians would've had a stronger and more palpable ally than the Austrians, but that's just hindsight talking.

As you understand, one can come with any type of a justification, if he really wants. The Old Fritz said something to the effect that when a ruler wants to start a war, he should do it leaving it to the philosophers to find a justification. If, for example, helping Hungarians would mean Russian annexation of Galicia, then demagoguery could go more or less along the lines used by Catherine II: freeing the Slavs from a Catholic oppression or just restoring the old Russian Princedom of Halych-Volhynia to Russia (or whatever; numerous versions of demagoguery could be used).

Refusing help to Austria (which would most probably eventually win on its own) could, again, go along the "Catherinian" lines: don't want to interfere into a dispute between (replace "King of Britain" with "Emperor of Austria") and his subjects.

It is just that, as was correctly noticed in a different post, Nicholas wanted to have Austria and Prussia "in his pocket" to promote his image of a "Gendarme of Europe" and to feel safe with implementing his schemes of expansion at the Ottoman expense. Why did he need that expansion is anybody's guess because, unlike case with France, there was not obvious economic interests involved. But for Nicholas "Russia is neither industrial nor agricultural country; it is a military state with a main goal to keep the rest of the world in fear."
 
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