Why Did The Revolutions of 1848 / 1849 Fail?

In 1848 the King of Piedmont, Charles Albert, boasted "Italia fara de se", that Italy would make herself by herself. This proved to be a hollow boast. The Piedmontese army was decisively beaten by Austrian troops under Radetsky at Custozza in July 1848; Charles Albert was forced to agree to an armistice, which left Lombardy and Venetia to the mercy of the Austrians. This was once more another opportunity to show rebel forces could not fight against the might of the Austrian military. The Italian states, even Piedmont, did not possess the military muscle to oust Austria from the peninsula. In March 1849 Charles Albert restarted the war against Austria but was again defeated at Novara. In April he abdicated in favour of his son Victor Emmanuel.

When it comes to Italian unification history seemed to be repeating and the re occurring theme of the failure was Austria. Austria's victories over the Piedmontese forces in Lombardy were mirrored elsewhere in the peninsula. It was by Austrian military intervention that the old regimes were restored in 1849. After Novara, the Austrian army moved south into Tuscany where they crushed the revolution and restored the Grand Duke. In Modena and Parma the rulers, who had fled their duchies in March 1848, were also restored by Austrian military power. By August 1849 the Venetian Republic was starved into surrender following a siege by the Austrian navy, heavy shelling and a severe outbreak of cholera Stiles is convinced that Austrian military superiority was the 'single most important factor in the failure of the revolutions'. The Austrian armies were better equipped, better led and vastly superior in numbers. In any conflict they were bound to win even if the revolutionary forces had been combined. As Stiles has stated, 'the lesson of the 1848/49 revolutions was that Austria held the key to Italian unity and had no intention of unlocking the door'.

However, such mono-causal explanations in history are rarely the 'full story' and the 1848/49 revolutions are no exception. As has already been stated, the revolutionaries made no concerted effort. Their divisions and weaknesses contributed to their failure. The lack of a single national leader to co-ordinate policy and inspire devotion was a problem. Pope Pius IX must have proved a major disappointment to all those who had, like Gioberti, hoped to see him emerge as the ruler of a federal Italy. He decided to dissociate himself from the war, and in the Allocution, an official policy speech made to the church he made his position clear. The Allocution not only made it clear that the pope would not fight against Austria but was also that he was drawing back from the idea of the Church's Italy,

The governments that emerged temporarily during the revolutionary chaos were inexperienced and weak. They made very little attempt to gain the popular support of the masses. The apathy of the masses was another key feature of these revolutions. Considering that a prime cause of the revolts was the economic distress and hardship caused by the harvest failures of 1846/47, the largely liberal provisional governments could have easily mobilised popular support by assisting the people. In most cases the peasants found little or no improvement in their lives. As a result, the restored rulers were often welcomed back by their subjects. When the Pope returned to Rome in 1850, the citizens cheered him through the streets. In any case, for most people local loyalties dominated. Linguistic and cultural divisions, compounded by natural obstacles like the Apennine Mountains produced what Duggan has described as the 'Geography of Disunity'. Despite the Risorgimento, there was little sense of nationhood amongst most ordinary Italians.

By late 1849 only the Roman Republic remained as the old order was restored. The French Army assisted by troops from Naples finally militarily overthrew it. That fact illustrates two reasons for the failure of the revolutions. The King of Naples was the sworn foe of the Roman Republic and had the same desire to crush it, as he had to end the revolts in Sicily. Secondly, the Italians needed foreign help to counter-balance Austrian military power. In 1849, when French help was equally needed all that came were French troops to defeat Garibaldi's heroic men and to overthrow the Roman Republic. This turning point was vital as it was the first real break through in Italian unification. If Italy was ever going to gain independence they needed to stop Austria and to do this they needed foreign intervention.

In conclusion the 1948 revolution was no different to 1820 or 1831 but I do not believe that these three revolutions were total failures. These revolutions all did one thing together; that the people did have the power to overtake the government and establish what they thought as the ideal government that was run by their constitution. And even though the Italian revolts did not last, they too showed their strength in their national feeling. Eventually, the revolts led to reform and ultimate success under different leaders and different years. Italian revolutions of 1848 ended in many of the failures of the previous revolutions such as the divided aims and tactics of the revolutionary groups were certainly an important factor as was the failure of the provisional governments to gain popular support. Italy also did not have one overall leader, which would always make it weak, but once more as had been for previous years he main failure had been the superiority r to Austrian military strength. The Italian forces were weak and divided and while the military power of Austria remained supreme in the peninsula there was no way for Italy to gain independence or unity without outside help.

Mark Strachan 12.6