Name: Alexis Cormano Form: 12CSYC Mr. Edwards
Unification of Italy
Why did the Revolutions of 1848/9 Breakout?
There were a number of reasons for the breakout of the 1848/9 revolutions, based upon many short and long term tensions, and yet, in spite of the optimistic rhetoric of the 1840s, the political theorists failed to devise practical ways of achieving their goals. Mazzini’s attempts to stimulate popular insurrection in 1833 and 1834 ended in complete failure. In 1836 he was forced to disband ‘Young Italy’. In 1837 Mazzini left for England where he pursued his dream in exile. Mazzini continued to influence the Italian Nationalist movement but his impact was as a classic romantic revolutionary, symbolic yet ultimately of no practical account. The proposals outlined by men such as Mazzini, Gioberti and Balbo were significant because they contained clarity of purpose absent from the vague intentions of the Carbonari. However, the appeal of such ideas was strictly limited, with the majority of the Italian people yet to be moved by the same nationalist impulses. In 1848 revolutions once again swept over Italy. However, unlike the other outbreaks of 1820-21 and 1831, there seemed to be real hope that these revolts might succeed. Three developments in the years 1846-48 provided the basis for this optimism.
One of the most important elements in the general development of Europe during the first half of the Nineteenth Century was sustained population growth. This long-term development placed enormous strains on the land. Although the productivity of agricultural land did increase, by 1840 many areas of Europe were quite unable to sustain their populations. Even at the best of times the common citizens of Europe lived at subsistence level only. Now, with cultivated land unable to yield adequate food supplies for a growing population, the potential for disorder during times of poor harvest became acute. In the 1840s there were major incidents of public disorder in Silesia, Posen, East Prussia and Galicia.
During the first half of the Nineteenth Century, continental Europe experienced a modest degree of industrial development. In concentrated areas of France, Belgium and Germany the foundation industries – coal, iron and textiles – underwent steady expansion. Large-scale factories are not yet commonplace in Europe but industrial towns, with their numerous busy workshops, displayed rapid growth. This growth was stimulated by migration from the overpopulated rural districts. Industrial towns like Saint Etienne and Lille, and older centres such as Paris and Berlin, attracted a section of the European population displaced from their traditional agrarian base and compelled to seek an alternative livelihood in the new industrial enterprises. The urban conditions which resulted help to explain the long-term background to the revolutions of 1848. Housing was in desperately short supply, producing terrible overcrowding; the average life expectancy of an industrial worker in Lille was just 32. Inadequate sanitation encouraged disease: tuberculosis, typhoid and worst of all, cholera. Epidemics of this deadly disease ravaged France in 1831-32 and again in 1847-49; in Paris alone during the earlier of these outbreaks, 18,400 people were carried off in just six months. Many of the migrants who flooded into the towns were uneducated, displayed criminal tendencies and were attracted to the cheap escape of alcoholic oblivion. The newcomers had little sense of loyalty to their adoptive towns and were frequently unemployed. Tension between the migrants and the natives was in constant evidence. For the city authorities it became increasingly difficult to control this potentially explosive situation. Strikes and riots amongst the urban working class multiplied in the years prior to 1848. Paris, Lille, Marseilles and Lyons all experienced civil disturbances, which could be directly linked to the intolerable conditions existing in such centres. A further source of discontent was the deteriorating position of the skilled artisan. Industrialization brought machines and constant supplies of cheap labour, which placed great strains on the traditional hand-workers. Gradually the protection of trade guilds was removed as unsympathetic governments passed legislation to render these organisations illegal. Increasingly, the skilled artisan had to compete with immigration workers prepared to work for low wages and with machinery, which forced down the costs of production and made hand-produced goods relatively expensive. The social status of the artisan worker was threatened by industrialisation, thus adding another source of discontent to an already restless Europe.
