ENGLISH FALLACIES ON AUSTRIAN RULE IN ITALY.
DR. GRANVILLE has placed in a compact form the materials for maintaining a correct public opinion on the rights of Italian affairs ;* no small service to the conscientious English politician, whom perverse ingenuity and tortuous pedantry have taken such systematic pains to mislead. That Austrian domination in Italy was the opprobrium of the nineteenth century, once was a settled point; and the very finality of the conclusion helped in making the general public forget the steps by which it had been attained. The day of reviving hope for Italian Liberalism naturally provoked annoyance among the traditional upholders of Absolutism in England ; but some, who have selected the time to revive the exploded absurdities of that school, ought to have known better. Lord Brougham, sated with paradoxes, explodes in a vehement assault on Pius the Ninth for his efforts to avert that ruin which was impending over Rome, vituperates Charles Albert, and mag- nifies the rule of Austria, in a manner that ought to make the Whig Ex-Chancellor forswear the Reform Bill, the Bill of Rights, Magna Charts, and all the successes of the English people. Mr. Disraeli, who has made the progress of uations his "specialite," affects to know no better. And a writer in. the Morning Chroniele employs a singular facility of piling up the show of authorities, in a series of efforts at restoring currency to the most fantastic of all " historic fancies "—the supreme benignity of Austrian go- vernment. The refutation of these historic fallacies lies in facts which are not ill known ; but they are scattered over a wide range of documents, old and modern ; the public cannot keep al- ways at hand the apparatus of refutation, and Dr. Granville has performed a useful task in furnishing those materials in a shape suited to the occasion.
The endeavour is, to make out that Austria has some kind of rights in Upper Italy over and above the right of forcible pos- session—that there is some sort of hereditary title in the Empe- ror's family, some moral title acquired by beneficial government, some treaty stipulation binding on the Italians—something, in short, superior to popular rights, or those rights that are to be acquired by the sword. The pretence will not stand a second glance, and nobody believes it ; but the glib utterance of asser- tion, with the confident use of dates and a sprinkling of proper names not common in newspapers, silences the indolent politician, who is not disposed to review a whole curriculum of reading, from the chronicles in Struve and Muratori to the more modern quartos of Coxe and Botta, or the current state papers. Excepting forcible possession, there is scarcely a pretext for any claim on the part of Austria to the territories of Lom- bardy and Venice : in fact, there is no parallel to the boldness of assertion in advancing any such claims, save the ludicrous com- pleteness of the refutation furnished by every fact in history. Of all figments, the hereditary title is the most extravagant. Lord Brougham asserts that "the Emperor of Austria has held Lombardy since the death of Charles the Fifth"; Lord. Aberdeen and Mr. Disraeli speak of Lombardy as having been under the dominion of "the family of Austria " for "three cen- turies." Such claims as were vaguely floating in the minds of the English statesmen might have been carried back to the eighth century, when the son of that King Pepin who is cele- brated in fairy tales founded "the Empire of the West " ; for indeed the notion of the Lombard tenure originates with the mythic traditions of the dark ages. When Charlemagne, in those conquests which recommenced the consolidation of Europe,. assumed the Iron Crown, Lombardy formed a convenient centre between his patronage of the Pope and his Imperial pretensions in Germany ; and in succeeding ages, when the " Emperors " affected to hold their title by some kind, of succession from Charles, the titular claim on the "regnum proprium Imperatoris" helped not only to keep open the access into Italy but also to at- test the qualification for the Imperatorial dignity. There is, how- ever, among the many territories which have passed under the possession of the Austrian potentate, no one that has been so ut- terly precarious in tenure as Lombardy. It formed no part of the scattered and scanty patrimony of the house of Hapsburg:, when Rodolph the First, the founder of the Austrian Empire, was elected to the Imperial dignity—the first of his house, and the first also by the energies of his mind and nature to impart a sub- stance of power to the empty title : but at no time can you dip into the history of his house and find that it held Lombardy by any well-established title. Limiting the view to the "three cen- turies," the case is no better. The mutual intrigues of Maximi- • lian and Charles the Twelfth to cheat each other out of the Milanese had then been defeated by the Sforza. Maximilian founded his claim on his own marriage with a bastard of the house of Sforza ; a claim doubly cut off by the bar- sinister, and being in fact not a title but a mere pretext. The intrigues were inherited by Charles the Fifth and Francis the First : Charles promised Francis to invest the Duke of Orleans with the dutcby ; but he broke his promise, and bilked the illustrious rival who was more than once vanquished by Charles's lower cunning. " From this date," says Dr. Gran- s " On the Formation and Coastitution of a Kingdom of Upper Italy. In a Letter to the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., Re. Re., her Britannic Ma- jesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affaini. By Augustus Bozzi Granville, M.D., F.R.S., &c., Editor of L'Itanco ' (1513-14), Author of • Si. Peteraburgh,' &c. &A. "The Italian Question. A Second Letter to Lord Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. /Lc.; with a Refutation of certain Misrepresentations by Lord Brougham, Mr. Disraeli, and the Quarterly &vino, respecting the Rights of Austria and the Lombardo-Vene- tians. Illustrated by a Map of the Disputed Territories." By the same.
Both pamphlets published by Mr. Ridgway.
"I presume Lord Brougham derives what he considers to be the origin of the right of Austria to Lombardy." The sub- sequent possession, however, was interrupted by the conquests of Spain, France, and Sardinia, no fewer thanfive times, and for long periods of time. Dr. Granville puts this in a tabular form ; show- ing that in the three centuries there had been no fewer than ten political changes, and that Austria occupied Lombardy only 121 years out of 302. There is, however, considerable laxity in the use of the word "Lombardy ": at the period of the French Revolution, the pos- sessions of Austria were limited to an irregular strip of land in
the valley of the Po and its tributaries. To Venice and its pos- sessions on the main there is of course not the shadow of a claim on the score of inheritance or conquest. Venice was possessed by none but the Venetians from 809, when Angelo Participazio removed the capital to Rialto, down to 1797, when Manini was the ignominious instrument of conceding it to Napoleon : it was sold by that mongrel hero in the following year to Austria. As if conscious that her antecedent claims will not bear inves- tigation, Austria rests her title on the treaty settlement of 1815. Not only, however, has every great Power of Europe been an ac- complice in breaking up that settlement, but the treaties were pe- culiarly destitute of any binding effect on the people of Northern Italy. Those people had not been conquered by Austria, nor fairly conquered even by France : the reconquest was effected, not by Austria, but by Europe combined : the treaties were made, not between Austria and the Italians, but between Austria and the Governments of other States in Europe assembled at the Congress in the Austrian capital : the interests avowedly dis- cussed at that Congress were, not the interests of Europe, still less of the Italians, but of certain crowned individuals and their families ; the Italian provinces were given to Austria as a con- venient indemnity for her losses territorial and pecuniary : neither Venice nor Lombardy were represented at the Congress ; neither of those states received any consideration in return for the advantages conferred on Austria ; neither of those states sub- scribed to the conditions stipulated in the treaties ; they therefore are morally and politically as free to, act, to invite aid, and to adopt any measures for shaking off Austria, as if those treaties had never existed.
The substantial power of the Vienna Congress was conferred by the battle of Waterloo ; and England therefore was especially answerable for a just application of that power. But her repre- sentative was a man of a narrow officialism, which mistook arbi- trary rule for energetic government, and he was absorbed in the one idea of putting down Napoleon. He was in a condition to be overreached, and he was so. However, he fairly enough represent- ed the state of opinion and feeling in England, which was then pro- foundly ignorant of the internal affairs of foreign countries apart from military or dynastic considerations, and was entirely swayed by the sentiments of anti-revolutionary panic : everything was to be thrust into the hands of Imperial power, as the grand custodier of peace, order, and stability ; with what sequel, we have seen. The curious politicians, who stand upon the treaties of 1815, think it a proof of intelligence to reenter the Congress of Vienna without the further knowledge derived from having lived in 1848: they choose to see no further than Castlereagh could have done, and to reject pregnant experiences which have impressed even the conqueror of Waterloo. Lord Castlereagh miscalcu- lated involuntarily ; the eccentric gentlemen whom Dr. Gran- ville so opportunely instructs, choose to be deluded for the fun of astonishing soberer folks. The delusion that Austrian rule in Italy has been recom- mended by good government, equally comes within the category of fancies. Of course the object was to establish such a steward- ship as should return the largest amount of revenue to the Im- perial family ; and to that end it was necessary to permit some amount of material prosperity. The peasantry lived in a degree of comfort. But in every branch the government was bad ; in every relation of life the situation of the Italian was intolerably irksome. The government was dishonest : that administration which is so praised by its eccentric eulogists here, for its support of charities and educational establishments, began its charity by confiscating all the charitable funds—appropriating them as a basis for a Government stock, and then generously contributing to the charities their own funds I Its educational activity lay in seizing the schools of Lombardy, regulating the instruction so as to teach obedience to the Emperor "as to a god," with a like limi- tation of every science to the requirements of political and ecclesi- astical Absolutism, and then forcing all persons to send their chil- dren. Taxes have been heavy. Commerce was restricted to favour the German interests of Austria, and burdened by Government monopolies. Public offices, even judicial posts, were filled by fo- reigners, often ignorant of the native language. The Germans were systematically favoured; the Italians were systematically cor- rupted. Espionage finished the work of corruption. An Italian gentleman must either suffer his son to be taught as a slave, or must brave the fate of a Confalonieri. Even to converse, you must walk away from ear-range of walls. Stand still in the streets, and a soldier came up to question your business. Your correspondence was searched. To study, even to think, was a poli- tical offence, punishable with perpetual imprisonment. These things are not false because they have been said by the enthusiastic and indiscreet Mazzini: they have been said also by the discreet and accomplished d'Azeglio, by the illustrious and accurate Litta; they have been attested by the Provisional Governments of Milan; many of the facts come within the knowledge of most travellers in Italy ; they are attested by every kind of evidence—patent to the widest notoriety. You might as well deny the New Police in London. The endeavour was to shut out the Italians, the country- men of Galileo and Spallanzani, of Ariosto and Dante—the chil- dren of the cradle of modern civilization—from the civilization of their own day : what the Inquisition attempted with Galileo, Austria attempted with the whole Italian race—attempted, and failed. Yet Englishmen endeavour to make Englishmen believe that such rule was a blessing!
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