How was Italy transformed from 'a geographical expression' to nation state?

Answer:

Metternich dismissed Italy in 1815 as merely 'a geographical expression', a peninsula of eight separate states under Austrian domination. Within half a century it had become a unified kingdom, through the combination of romantic nationalism, shrewd diplomacy and popular insurrection.

The condition after 1815

• The Congress of Vienna restored the old rulers and Austrian primacy in the peninsula.
• Lombardy and Venetia were held directly by Austria; other states were dominated by her.
• Divisions of dialect, law, currency and custom obstructed any sense of nationhood.

The ideological phase: Mazzini

• Mazzini founded Young Italy in 1831, preaching a democratic republic won by the people.
• He gave the movement its moral and emotional inspiration, earning the name of its prophet.
• The Carbonari and the risings of 1820-21 and 1831 failed but kept the idea alive.
• The revolutions of 1848-49, including the Roman Republic, were suppressed by Austria and France.

The diplomatic phase: Cavour

• Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont from 1852, modernised its economy, army and finances.
• He joined the Crimean War in 1855 to win a hearing at the Congress of Paris.
• The Plombieres agreement of 1858 secured Napoleon III's alliance against Austria.
• War in 1859 brought Lombardy to Piedmont, and plebiscites added the central duchies.
• Nice and Savoy were ceded to France as the price of French support.

The popular phase: Garibaldi

• Garibaldi's Thousand Redshirts sailed in 1860, conquering Sicily and Naples.
• He handed his conquests to Victor Emmanuel II, subordinating republicanism to unity.
• The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861 with Victor Emmanuel as king.

Completion and limits

• Venetia was gained in 1866 through alliance with Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War.
• Rome was annexed in 1870 when French troops withdrew during the Franco-Prussian War.
• Deep north-south economic divisions persisted, prompting the saying that Italy having been made, Italians must now be made.

Assessing the process

• Unification was in large measure the expansion of Piedmont rather than a popular revolution.
• Favourable European circumstances, the Crimean War and Prussia's rise, were indispensable.
• The papacy's hostility left the Roman Question unresolved until 1929.
• Mazzini himself was disappointed by the monarchical and centralised outcome.
• The masses of the south remained largely untouched by the national idea.

Italy was thus transformed by the convergence of three forces: Mazzini's ideal, Cavour's diplomacy and Garibaldi's arms, exploiting favourable European circumstances. As historians observe, unification was achieved less by popular revolution than by Piedmontese expansion, which explains why the new state long remained a nation still in the making.