In 1815 the possibility of a united Italy was slight(TM) to what extent do you agree with this?

Political affairs were not very important to most Italians at the time, in particular the peasants who made up for the largest percentage of the Italian population. They were much more interested in there everyday livelihood and trying to provide for themselves and their families. Many of these people were also illiterate, ignorant and in poverty, particularly in the South. Because of this achieving a unified Italy and getting the whole of the Italian population to want or even care about achieving it would be very hard. Among the middle classes though the view of politics was very different and in fact by 1815, there were many new political ideas starting to spread. There was a widespread feeling that Italy needed a Risorgimento and that with this there may become a much more powerful Italy. This backed up the possibility of an Italian unification.  

Unification would have been made difficult as most people believed that being patriotic was being loyal to the state that they live in rather than Italy itself. People would see themselves as a Tuscan or a Neapolitan rather than an Italian. The Roman Catholic Church had also regained its influence of Italy by 1850 and would attempt to stop any type of Italian unification. The church was very conservative and was able to put its strong views across to a very large audience. Despite this others in Italy, in particular the middle classes, started to believe in new political ides which included Nationalism and Liberalism. The nationalists attempted to redevelop loyalty so that people saw themselves as Italians and attempted to restore pride in there country. The liberals believed that a man’s freedom is his most important right; this may spark the Italian people to put across their own views and push towards unification. However these groups acted independently of each other and this would hinder the possibility of a unified Italy. They were mainly made up of very few people and were unable to put across their views to an audience as wide as those of others like the church for example.    

In 1815 the influence of Austria was very great in Italy. They had direct control over many areas in Italy and maintained overall influence in Italy due to its many family alliances and dependence on the military. Most of the leaders were related to the emperor and eve the pope used Austria for guidance as it was the most important catholic state in Europe. Austria had a number of spy networks and had Austrian ministers at every court; they would not want a unified Italy, therefore making its possibility very slight. At the time there was also something called the holy alliance which was made up of Austria, Russia and Prussia. They were uninterested in the problems faced by people because of there rulers and disliked anything that even hinted to a revolution. Even the more sympathetic countries such as Britain and France were in no position to help.    

From the information I have gathered I conclude that I agree with the statement to a certain extent but not entirely. There are many reasons that the chance of a United Italy are slight and these reasons generally outweigh the arguments that its not. Most of the arguments against the statement also only hinder the arguments for it rather than exclude them completely. However even with this I fell that the way in which many of the states were run, soon enough the people would look to push for a United Italy as it would definitely be in their own personal interests.