Why did the revolutions of 1848-49 fail to remove foreign influence from Italy?

        Another factor in the failure was the difference in how to go about the revolutions. Not only was it the aims that differed but also the methods in which to achieve them. There were different extremes, with the liberals such as Balbo and Gioberti and the radicals such as Mazzini. The liberals wanted not an Italian republic but a federation of states but still could not agree on who was to adopt leadership of it. While the radicals wanted a republic with a democracy and were willing to employ revolutionary method in order to achieve it. Something the liberals were less willing to have to do.

        The fact that there was no co-operation and differing aims were both connected to the fact that there was no clear leader. There were different political philosophies and so there was no one aim, or one person leading meant there was very little co-ordination. There was great division and no one person to unite them. This meant that the divided attempts to revolt were weak where as a united revolution would have been strong, with its leader the obvious choice to take power, preventing disagreements about who was to have control.

        I feel that foreign intervention was the major factor in the failure of the revolutions because it was not until the foreign interference that the other factors were exposed. Although all of these factors meant that the foreign forces were too strong to fight, without the actions of the French Republic the revolutions may well have been more successful and a united Italy established earlier than it eventually was. It was because of the fear that the revolutions would in fact be successful that France was called into action at all. After the pope was forced to flee Rome due to rioting in November 1848, Napoleon III recently elected to power in France intervened in the revolutions. It was his insecurity and need to keep the support of the, predominantly catholic, French population that brought his intervention in the revolutions. In order to keep this support he felt he needed to return the pope to power. He did this by sending in 20 000 men to crush the revolutionaries and destroy the Roman Republic. It was due to this intervention of France and Austria of the revolutions that foreign influence was not removed from Italy. Each country still wanted to hold power in Italy and so was ready to crush any revolutions which appeared likely to be successful in spite of the other factors impeding them. Although the other factors did prevent a stronger revolution, it would probably still have been successful if it hadn’t been for the intervention of Austria and France.

        The failures of these revolutions were a combination of all these factors. The fact that they were separate revolutions rather than one united revolution for a unified country under its own control was a major reason but the most significant reason was the intervention from outside of Italy. It was this that meant that when a revolution was successful in spite of the many obstacles they faced, they were crushed before they could gain more support and possibly spread to become a more unified revolution for Italy. If there had been no foreign intervention the revolutions would have been successful. They may not have brought about unification, but each state would have been in its own control without foreign influences, which was the aim of the revolutions. It was foreign intervention that thwarted this. This was because Austria knew the wealth that was available for them in the growing economy of Italy, and was unwilling to give it up. With the French supporting the pope as well this meant that the revolutions were destined to fail.