Italy Before 1848
Italy in the Making, 1815-1846. By G. F. H. Berkeley. (Cambridge University Press. 15s.) TIIE Italian revolutions of 1848 which failed against the opposition of Austria and France are too often taken as the beginning of the national revival that attained its aims by 1870. But the revival had begun and developed in the preceding generation when Mazzini's secret agents were preaching Republicanism and more moderate patriots, Gioberti, Massimo d'Azeglio and Balbo, were seeking approval of a federated Italy under the Pope or the King of Sardinia. An accurate and dispassionate account of this period, such as Mr. Berkeley supplies in his new book, has been much needed by English students. There is no lack of English biographies or of narratives in which the advanced men play the leading parts, but the hard facts of that outwardly depressing age when Metternich dominated Italy and her people seemed apathetic are usually glossed over by English writers. Here they are made clear and intelligible by Mr. Berkeley, who has delved deep in the abundant Italian literature of the Risorgi- mento and in the archives.
The author recognizes Mazzini's ability as the organizer of Young Italy, the revolutionary society that had its branches wherever Italians lived as well as throughout Italy. But he is firmly convinced that Mazzini alone could not have won freedom for his native land. The peoples of her ten separate States had to be made to feel that they were all Italians first, and not only Piedmontese, Romans, Tuscans and so on. Moreover, there had to be some general agreement on the future form of government—federation, perhaps, under the Pope or union under Piedmont—and the masses who looked to the Vatican and were but little affected by the Republican propaganda took no great interest in the movement of libera- tion until Pius IX, the Liberal Pope, was elected in 1840. Foreign help, of course, was needed to shake off the Austrian yoke, but the patriots' first aim was to create a national demand for freedom.
Mr. Berkeley, in his painstaking account of the main influences and cross-currents, gives much more credit to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, than most English writers would assign to him. He was hated by the Liberals because, as heir apparent, he had first supported and then backed out of Santarosa's insurrection in 1821 ; he was distrusted by the
reactionaries despite his pledge—given perforce to Austria— not to disturb the old regime. But, in Mr. Berkeley's view, Charles Albert secretly sympathised with the patriots all along, and it is clear that by building up a substantial army in Piedmont he gave the patriotic cause a solid nucleus of strength which, but for him, it would not have had when the crisis came.
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