10. France and Italy
“The assassination of Pellegrino Rossi, the Papal Minister of Justice, sparked mass protests in Rome the following day. Among the demands made by the crowds of demonstrators were democratic reforms, social reforms, and Italian unification. On November 24th, unable to restore order, Pope Pius IX escaped from Rome and fled to Gaeta, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He left in charge Archbishop Carlo Emanuele Muzzarelli, who introduced reforms that the Pope then rejected.
…Without governance, the people of Rome took matters into their own hands. Popular assemblies were formed, and a tricolor was flown from the statue of Marcus Aurelius. As the Pope had forbid Catholics from participating in the nascent revolution, the constitutional assembly that was elected to provide a central government in the Pope’s absence was republican in nature. Despite threats of excommunication, turnout was relatively high, and the assembly proclaimed a Republic on February 8th, 1849. After news arrived in Rome of the Sardinians’ decisive loss at Novara, the Assembly appointed a triumvirate of Giuseppe Mazzini, Carlo Armellini, and Aurelio Saffi to lead the Republic.
The triumvirate, revered today along with Garibaldi in the modern Italian Republic, passed several popular reforms. The Pope was invited to return to the Vatican to serve as head of the Catholic Church, sweeping religious freedom granted, the death penalty abolished, the tax burden was lightened, and work programs were implemented to reduce unemployment. However, all was not well in the nascent Republic – the simultaneous increase in spending and cutting of taxes caused a spate of dangerous inflation, and Austria and the Two Sicilies loomed on the borders. Amid this air of tension arrived Giuseppe Garibaldi, who arrived in July with a force of 1,000 and was placed in command of Rome’s defenses.
While President Cavaignac refused to intervene and declared France neutral [1], Austria viewed the Roman Republic as a threat to its operations against Sardinia, and the Two Sicilies was loathe to allow revolutionaries to topple the Pope from power. Thus, both Field Marshal Radetzky and King Ferdinand II prepared to march to Rome and depose the republican triumvirate. Giuseppe Garibaldi rushed with his men to mount a defense as the Austrians pivoted south to restore order in Tuscany. With the Pope openly appealing for Austrian aid, General Franz von Wimpffen advanced on Ferrara and besieged it. After encountering stiff resistance and a rejection of his demand for surrender, he bombarded the city into submission and captured it on May 16th.
Garibaldi left his forces along the border with the Two Sicilies in the hands of his trusted lieutenants and took command of the troops in the north. With Ferrara already in Austrian hands, Garibaldi organized the defense of Bologna. Fighting lasted for two months as Garibaldi fought hard, harassing the Austrian supply chain in daring raids and repelling numerous efforts to take the city [2]. His courage in combat also inspired the people of Bologna to persevere during the Austrian artillery bombardments. The heavy fighting greatly weakened von Wimpffen's army, while Garibaldi launched daring raids that destroyed vital ammunition and provisions. By the middle of July, the Austrians were facing mounting casualties and chronic shortages. The arrival of Roman reinforcements from Ancona spelled further troubles for the besieging army. On August 5th, von Wimpffen broke off the direct siege after Garibaldi led a devastating attack on the Austrian lines. For the remainder of the conflcit, the Austrian army was relegated to artillery bombardments that grew more sporadic with each Roman raid.
…With Hungary still in revolt, the Austrian Empire was in no condition to commit to a full siege of Bologna. Meanwhile, the Two Sicilies was torn between suppressing a revolution on Sicily and invading north, where Garibaldi’s lieutenants were putting up stiff resistance. As the fighting ground to a halt in August, the Austrian army remained encamped around Bologna and the Sicilian armies were unable to break through Roman resistance. Mazzini appealed to the French to end the conflict, as Roman finances were increasingly strained, and casualties were mounting. On September 9th, President Cavaignac offered Rome the protection of the French Republic, and the Roman assembly readily agreed. Cavaignac was loathe to intervene directly, but he hoped to broker a peace that would leave France with greater influence in the Italian peninsula. Foreign Minister de Tocqueville [3] reluctantly agreed to oversee the peace negotiations – he viewed Mazzini and the revolutionaries as little more than terrorists. He was persuaded by the opportunity to expand French influence in Italy, and by the humiliation it would bring France if Austrian troops were to parade through Rome [4].
The Austrians were rather relieved by the news that France wanted to mediate peace – strained finances and an overstretched supply line precluded von Wimpffen from besieging Bologna any longer. The Two Sicilies also welcomed the news, as their army had been sapped by the revolution in Sicily and the failed invasion of the Roman Republic. Thus, an uneasy status quo ante settlement was reached, with the Austrians and Sicilians withdrawing from occupied Roman territory. The Roman assembly invited Pope Pius IX to return to Rome, stripped of his temporal powers. The sullen Pope refused, remaining in the Neapolitan fortress where he lived in self-imposed exile from the Republic that had deposed him.
The first war of Italian independence had come to an inconclusive conclusion. The Austrians had prevented the tide of revolution from ending their rule in Italy, Sardinia-Piedmont was humiliated, the Two Sicilies had crushed an attempted revolution, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany was restored to his throne. However, central Italy was ruled by a new government driven by the dream of risorgimento – Italian unification. The Roman Republic had survived its greatest challenge, and once it resolved its financial troubles, would become a great headache for Austria and the other old regimes of Italy.”
-From THE GRAND CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1815-1898 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2001
“Even after its revolution in 1848, France remained in a state of turmoil throughout 1849-1851. The narrow Conservative majority [5] had attempted in 1850 to replace universal suffrage with a law limiting the franchise to those with at least a three-year residency and a certain income, effectively disenfranchising most factory workers. Due to intraparty divisions and strong opposition from President Cavaignac, the attempt failed, embarrassing Thiers and the conservatives [6].
While the defeat of the franchise law enhanced Cavaignac’s popularity, it damaged his relations with the legislature. During his 1848 run for President, Cavaignac had been endorsed by Thiers and the Party of Order for his role in suppressing the left-wing June Days uprising. Cavaignac’s increasing alignment with the left had cooled relations between him and Thiers considerably. Now, the Party of Order denounced Cavaignac fully.
…his foreign policy eroded some of his popularity. By first refusing to intervene and restore the Pope’s temporal authority and then extending recognition to the Roman Republic, Cavaignac angered the Ultramontane Catholics. They regarded this move as an affront to not just the Pope’s rule, but all Catholics. In 1852, fueled by the right-wing backlash to Cavaignac’s policy in Italy, the conservatives won a significantly increased majority in the legislature. Prevented from contesting the election by term limits, Cavaignac stood aside for Interior Minister Jules Dufaure. Dufaure would lose the election decisively to the conservative candidate, Adolphe Thiers. Thiers had declined to run in 1848, fearing he would discredit the conservative movement. With the Republicans on the defensive, Thiers decided it was an opportune moment to run. Alexandre Ledru-Rollin also ran as the Democratic Socialists’ candidate. Thiers defeated Dufaure 52%-34%, with Ledru-Rollin winning 10% and minor parties comprising the rest of votes cast. French democracy had survived its initial tests…”
-From THE REPUBLIC: A HISTORY OF MODERN FRANCE by Eric Young, published 2003
[1] The second major divergence in Europe.
[2] The OTL defender of Ancona, Livio Zambeccari, was criticized for being too passive. Here, Garibaldi combines Zambeccari’s skillful repulses of Austrian attacks with Garibaldi’s experience in guerilla warfare.
[3] De Tocqueville was OTL a strong supporter of Cavaignac and was appointed Foreign Minister by Napoleon III. TTL, he’s rewarded for his support of Cavaignac with that same post.
[4] De Tocqueville held similar views OTL, although he certainly didn’t object to Napoleon III’s invasion of Rome.
[5] OTL, the Party of Order won a resounding majority in the 1849 elections, reducing the Republicans from 600 seats to just 75. Turnout also fell from 1848 to 1849, falling from 83% to 68%. TTL, turnout doesn’t drop quite as drastically, and the Republicans lose far fewer seats. It’s not enough to preserve their majority, but it’s a more respectable showing than OTL.
[6] The franchise bill passed IOTL and was used by Napoleon III as a pretext for his 1851 coup. TTL, with a smaller conservative majority and a stronger opposition (the Republicans are the second largest party, not the third largest), the bill fails.