The Failure Of The Liberal State 1876-1914
Introduction
In 1861 Italy was united under a Piedmontese king, Victor Emmanuel II. The creation of a unified Italian State (completed with the acquisition of Venetia in 1866 and the Papal States in 1871) is often 'seen as the culmination of a series of developements stretching back to the first stirrings of nationalist sentiment in the the late 18th century'.1 Yet its creation occurred almost by accident and the Italy that was formed disappointed many of its makers. Cavour, Piedmontese Prime Minister, had only urged Victor Emmanuel to act for unification of all Italy when Garibaldi's success threatened to unite Italy outside of Piedmont's control and domination and on more radical terms than were acceptable. This meant that Italy was united in a rush with little consideration of the finer points of how this should happen; for example, whether Italy should be a single nation state or a federal body, monarchial or republican. As it was, Italy was united by force of Piedmontese arms and therefore Piedmont and the conservative Liberalism present there would dominate united Italy. This is what lies behind B.A. Haddock's assertion that 'from the very outset it [united Italy] was a hollow achievement.'2 The united Italy that was created was simply the 'Piedmontese state writ large', which to many nationalists, particularly the more radical was unacceptable. Piedmont had been allowed to triumph because, after the experience of 1848, most nationalists felt that constituitional and social issues should come second to the unification of Italy and its freeing from foreign domination. Many nationalists were disatisfied because political change had always been associated with social change and 'economic and cultural renewal' while the Piedmontese unification was essentially a conservative one 'designed to accomplish far reaching political changes while preserving the social status quo.'3
Not only did the unification, as it occurred under the control of a narrow Piedmontese elite, enjoy little support among the nationalists, but it also was opposed by the Church (particularly after 1870 when Rome was taken over by the Italian state). This was significant because the Church was much closer to the people at large than the political elite, and the Church's opposition to the new state meant it was deprived of an important popular legitmacy from the very outset. The Liberal political culture which dominated the new state further weakened its legitimacy and support by adopting wholesale Piedmontese law and administrative structures and even the Piedmontese constituition for the new Italy. For a country of such vastly differings regions all accustomed to different practices this was nothing short of disastrous. Coupled with the brutal suppression of civil unrest in the south in 1861-5 which was 'to sour relations between the north and south for generations to come'4 it is not difficult to see why some of the central 'themes [of] .. Italian history ... since the Risorgimento [have been] the incapacity of the elites to establish their hegemony over the classes that lay below them [in fact Italians in general], the weakness and inefficiency of the state ... [and] the enduring problem of the south.'5 It was the challenge to the Liberal state in this period to overcome all the handicaps with which it had been encumbered from the outset and to secure the support of Italians for Italy, to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people for the Liberal state. In this it failed, why and how is what I will discuss in the rest of this essay.
Coercion and Conciliation: The Liberal State 1876-1900
It was only when Agnostino Depretis became Prime Minister in 1876 that the new Liberal State began in any great way to coerce or reconcile the various groups opposed to the united Italy that had been created. Up to this point government had been in the hands of the Right, landowning northern aristocrats, who had done little to gain legitimacy for the new state and little to make Italians greater than vague nationalistic sentiments of 'loving Italy'. The entrance of the Left, professional middlemen and politicians from the South, ushered in an era of low politics, where opposition was bought off, and that which couldn't be was coerced.
In some ways Depretis' 11 years in office were succesful. Large state spending particularly on the navy and railways helped to start Italy's industrialisation and created an economic boom. The creation of a national railway infrastructure would obviously be a massive boost for national unity in such a diverse and geographically divided country. And if Italy were to become a modern nation state it had to move away from an agriculture dominated economy to a modern industrial one. However there were several problems. First the industrialisation in this perod (1876-1887) further exacerbated the north-south divide with the south actually losing industry (e.g. the silk industry). Second the industrialisation failed to take off and in fact after 1887 the Italian economy entered its 'darkest years.' This reversal coupled with free trade, which had been terrible for landowners, led to the adoption of protection in a major way in 1887 which not only did great damage to the Italian economy in the short term but was a measure which favoured certain small interest groups against the population at large. Protection had in large part been demanded by landowners who were being hit by the Europe wide agricultural depression, and again Depretis only satisfied a small but politically powerful group. The peasants particularly in the south had actually suffered from unification through the combination of removal of large tariff barriers, the selling off of demesne land which simply resulted in the loss of communal grazing rights for the peasants, the imposition of large land taxes, and harsh suppression of any popular unrest. Thus in agricultural and industrial affairs Depretis' term did lead to new groups being attached to the regime (namely southern middlemen and the new industrialists) but it stored up problems for the future in other areas and did not gain support from several major areas of the populace.
In other areas Depretis did even less. Education was one of the major areas in which the new state could act to try and make Italians. Most Italians could not speak the Italian language let alone write it. Outside of Tuscany and Rome it is estimated only 0.6% of the population knew Italian and in the 1881 census 61.9% of the population was illiterate. Not only that, these figures disguise the fact that literacy was also a major dividing factor in Italy, with the north in general far more literate than the south. Considering this, one would have thought that the government of the 'Left' would have made a large effort in the area of education. It did little. In 1877 primary education was made compulsory but only for two years which was probably inadequate, and the time was only raised to three years in 1888. Moreover compulsion was a sham: in the south it is estimated that truancy ran at 80%. Despite the intention of the 'Liberal ruling class . . . to make Italians' through state run schools 'primary education enticed so few children into regular attendance that arguably it made little difference what was taught there.'6 The inabilility of most Italians to speak or read the national language was obviously a major impediment to 'making Italians' and gaining legitimacy for the national state. The fact that Depretis' government did so little about the problem is a major failure in any attempt to solve the problems facing the Liberal Italian state.
The other major failing of the Depretis government was that its method of gaining legitimacy (and perhaps the only one in the face of so many opposing forces) was to buy off opposition and politicise the state. The Liberal state felt it could not give too much power away to instituitions over which it did not have control. Thus the police were often used for political purposes (to harry opponents of government candidates at elections) and their powers 'were, at best, illiberal.'7 The judiciary was almost an entirely political instituition and it 'did not form an independent branch of the State. They [judges] could not protect themselves, let alone anyone else from political abuses.'8 The state's instituitions were corrupted into being political tools rather than backbones of a modern legitimate state, and the way these instituitions behaved could only further undermine support for it. Along with the distrust of local government by the central one and the large scale corruption on both local and national scales, and the narrow suffrage (widened in 1882 but still less 7% of the population) it is not surprising the government enjoyed little support from both the general populous and even some of the political classes.
The era of Depretis was the era of the integration of the southern deputies into the political system. Some other groups were also reconciled, for example some of the nationalists including Garibaldi, but many groups were not. With the extension of the vote in 1882, working men in the north could now vote and this would eventually mean the rise of a socialist party opposed to the Liberal state. Depretis failed also to reconcile the most important section of the opposition to the Italian state, namely the church. 'The 1880s were the classic era of trasformismo, i.e. of governments led by Depretis 'transforming' opponents into supporters'9 but it was usually only the support of a small elite and it was not permanent support. In the end the governments of Depretis did little to contribute to the 'legitimizing' of the Italian state, their most important legacy was the corruption of parliamentary rule. Though perhaps given the nature of unification it was inevitable, 'arguably it was better that governments should 'buy off' the Southern elites, rather than simply ignore them, or repress them. This was parliament's real function in the new united Italy: to make Piedmontese rule acceptable elsewhere.'10
Depretis had focused on buying off elites, but the period 1887-1890 saw the rise of popular organisations opposed to the Liberal state which could not be bought off without endangering the whole Liberal edifice. This was in no small part due to Francesco Crispi who became Prime Minister on Depretis' death in 1887. Crispi Prime Minister 1887-1891 and 1893-1896 was a crusader of the Liberal Right, determined 'to abolish corruption, strengthen the executive, reinforce the army, defend Italy's interests abroad and promote social reforms.' But Crispi with little concern for the complexity of Italy, 'succeeded mainly in disrupting the economy, endangering the whole Liberal regime, and provoking far more widespread and effective movements of political opposition.'11
One of the major problematical areas of this period was the economy. With the failing of the boom of the early 1880s the government came under pressure to impose tariffs. The two major groups who pushed for 'protection' were northern: 'it was essentially a North Italian alliance of textile manufacturers and Po valley landowners.'12 The protectionists got what they wanted and in 1887 a new general tariff was introduced. But this was only half the story, since the general tariff did not apply to countries which had a trade treaty with Italy. France, Italy's biggest trading partner, had a trade treaty but it expired in 1888. It was not renewed and in February of that year a trade war between Italy and France began, which was to prove disastrous for Italy. Not only was protectionism bad for the Italian economy but it had several other serious repercussions. The tariff war resulted in the removal of foreign investment from the country. This led to pressure on many banks which had overextended themselves in the earlier boom. Several banks failed and worse, as a result, the government allowed the six note-issuing banks, as a perk of bailing out smaller banks and finance houses, to print money. This resulted in 50 million lire of illegal currency being in circulation, but at the same time did little to save other banks. 'At the end of 1893 the two largest credit instituitions in Italy, the Banca Generale and the Societa Generale di Credito Mobilare, closed their doors. These banks had financed industry, agriculture, commerce and railways as well as property and their fall was an economic disaster.'13 Even the Banca Romana, a note issuing bank, collapsed at the end of 1893. This was not so serious economically as politically. Banco Romana had been in trouble since the late 1880s and had solved its financial problems by simply printing money. In 1889 a report had been commisioned by Crispi which strongly condemned the bank's practices, but the report was shelved because 'many of the bank's losses had been incurred from loans granted to tottering businesses favoured by the governments or politicians . . . [and] the Banca Romana, like other banks, had made large 'loans' to leading politicians, often without expecting any interest.'14 Eventually, though, Radicals managed to get hold of the report. The Banca Romana collapsed, and a new committee in November 1893 reported about the financial irregularities. More importantly the committee also named twenty-two deputies who had received 'loans' from the bank, including Giolitti, who at this point was Prime Minister. The Giolitti government resigned and Crispi, who had been let off by the committee, became prime Minister again. This was not all however. In December 1894 Giolitti handed over documents to the President of the Chamber which showed that not only had Crispi 'borrowed' money from the bank but so had his wife and relatives. Crispi did not resign but simply stalled. It was the defeat of the Italian army at Adowa by the Abyssinians (the first time a European army had been defeated by an African one), that finally brought Crispi down. The economic and colonial failures along with the domestic scandals of this period did not fatally weaken the Liberal state, but they continued to discredit it, particularly in their provocation of a more organised and vocal opposition. It is to the question of oppositon and the government's method of dealing with it that I now turn.
This period saw the rise two major opposition groups to the Liberal state, -the Socialists and the Catholics- the golden age of radicalism/Republicanism and also two major popular insurrections. From the very beginning the Church had been opposed to the Italian state and particularly the anti-clerical Liberal one, but in the 1890s the church increased substantially in secular society, this was due to two factors. First the Liberal opposition to the Church intensified under Crispi and his successors, and the reform of the charities in 1890 in particular 'made it even more vital for Catholics to gain or share control of local government'15. Second, the growth of Socialism was a profound threat to the Church, and one way for the Church to deal with it was to support its own social reform: 'Papal Socialism' was to combat 'Red Socialism'16 (Leo XIII famous encyclical: Rerum Novarum was published in 1891). This led to an increase in Catholic activity. For example a clerico-moderate alliance took over Milan in 1895, and 'this was the great era of the 'Opera' [dei Congressi, the most important Catholic lay organisation].' However the success of 'social Catholicism' led to problems. More and more Catholics felt an inevitable further step must be the relaxation of Pius IX's 'non expedit' which had prohibited Catholics from taking part in the parliamentary (state) elections, but this presented difficulties: 'As the '_Opera_' became more lay and more 'social', it seemed likely to evolve into some kind of a political party. Yet if it did that , would the clergy and the hierachy be able to retain control of it?' The success of the Catholic movement seemed also to threaten the Liberal regime. In 1897 di Rudini, the Prime Minister, decided to crack down, and Prefects were instructed to close down Catholic associations and journals. With the bread riots of 1898, and the participation of a small number of Catholics (e.g. Don Albertario) 'the whole Catholic network of social, educational, and economic bodies, so laboriously built up over the previous decades, was crushed.' Surprisingly the Church did not seem too distressed by the turn of events. In fact, 'the persecution of 1897-98 ....[led] to traditional 'intransigence' [being] quietly dropped'. The Church was scared by the radicalism of its own and felt it more prudent to defend itself by allying with the Right-wing Liberals, 'Catholic politics moved into an era of 'clerico-moderate' alliances at both national and local level; the Catholics threat had apparently been 'absorbed'.'17
The other threat to the Liberal state came from the opposite of the spectrum to the conservative Church, namely the Socialists and the Radicals. Socialism, particuliarly in a grassroots form of local labour organisations had already begun before this period (POI), but there were many different groups all committed to different aims and ideologies. It is only with the national labour congress in 1892 in Genoa that an Italian Socialist Party was formed. The main problem it encountered throughout the 1890s was periodic repression by the state. In 1893-4 there had been widespread disturbances in Sicily by Socialist led Fasci. The disturbances were harshly put down by Crispi, Fasci leaders were sentenced to long terms, all workers' associations were shut down, and Socialists were purged from the electoral roles. Moreover Crispi went further, in October 1894 he dissolved the Socialist party altogether, electoral roles were 'amended', and Socialist deputies were arrested. In 1897-8 it was again repressed by di Rudini, particularly after the widespread bread riots in 1898, and then by General Pelloux in 1899-1900. The result of all of this was to move the Socialists towards Radicals in demands for bourgeois liberties and reform as opposed to revolution, and despite all the government's efforts 'by 1898 the PSI was an important part of the coalition against the government.'18 While the Socialists represented the nascent populist party on the left, the Radicals while more significant in 1890s were on the way out. Nevertheless with the constant emphasis on the failings of the Liberal state and their fight for liberties the Radicals were significant, particularly in the way they influenced future leaders like Zanardelli. The Radicals were the intellectual opinion formers for the centre ground which included the left of the Liberals and the reformist right of the Socialists.
The 1890s had been an era of great turmoil for the Liberal state but what was the result? Strong government where parliament was disregarded and parties were banned with abandon was discredited. The elections of 1900 were a victory for the Left and the constituitional Liberals. At the same time many of the supposed subversive groups had been absorbed into the system - perhaps not altogether but now they were 'the defenders of liberty and the Constituition, against many 'conservative' groups.'19 However there was a flip side to this in that there were now groups of the Right (who had become particularly vocal in the constituitional crisis of 1899-1900) who were opposed to the state in the form it existed. It was out of this 'conservative' disaffection fertilised with the memory of Adowa that the nationalists, the greatest threat to the Liberal state, would spring. Essentially the 1890s had been period where the government had bullied because it could not bribe, and despite the seeming reconciliation of some groups, the Italian state as it existed commanded little if any legitimacy in the eyes of Italians.
The Age of Giolitti 1900-1914
Giolitti was the great conciliator of the Liberal state, he wished to conciliate opposition groups, to reconcile real Italy to legal Italy, but 'in the long run, his policies did not work.'20 Giolitti never resolved the fundamental problem of the Liberal state: that the Liberal elite was never willing to give up real power, and how was it to gain legitimacy if it did not. The people were to be ruled not taken seriously, Giolitti like all Liberals 'had no wish to see fundamental political change, and certainly did not intend to allow the Socialist, of the Radicals, or the Catholics, or the Nationalists, any autonomous role in Italian politics. These groups -or rather, their leaders - had to be bought off',21 not given equality within a democratic pluralistic system.
Giolitti was able to buy off so many groups in part because of the upturn in the Italian econcomy after 1896. Just as troubles in the 1890s had been associated with the depression after 1887 so the tranquility for the decade after 1900 is due in no small part to the improved economic conditions. Firstly the better state of the economy meant that employers were more willing to make concessions to workers, and in agriculture there would be no repetition of the bread riots of 1898. Secondly the state had more money, and for example could spend large amounts on relief for the South, 'designed to promote economic growth or at least buy off unrest.'22 In the North the state subsidized much of heavy industry, particularly indirectly through Navy contracts etc. Unfortunately in the long term none of this was very good. The South despite subsidies was left behind by the North, further increasing the already dangerous divide. Subsidies and interference in the North meant that in 'many leading sectors - steel, shipping, sugar - it was a handful of State-sponsored, tariff-protected, cartelized firms that succeeded; and they succeeded by virtue of their financial connections and their political weight.'23 In other words, major areas of the Italian economy were corrupt, inefficient and dependent on the state for their survival. All of this stored up trouble for the future (for example the steel industry now needed naval orders to survive and thus became a lobbyist for nationalist expansionism).
This was true of most other areas of Giolitti conciliation. He could reconcile groups temporarily with some titbit or other but could never permanently win their support. In fact often recconciling one group annoyed another one, 'Giolitti was a good political juggler but even he could not keep all the balls in the air at once.'24 Perhaps most significantly, Giolitti's conciliation throughout this period of the 'Left' eventually failed as worsening of economic conditions led to a hardening of line among Socialists, while at the same time alienating powerful groups on the Right (e.g. the landowners and industrialists.) Concession is also temporary, concessions lead to more concessions, and not only to the same groups, if one group gets concessions then all groups want them. Giolitti had other problems in that the period saw the rise of the nationalists, a group who could not be absorbed. The nationalists preying on Italians feeling of inferiority among the other European powers and memories of Adowa were extremely successful and with their tendency to right wing authoritarianism they presented a major threat to the Liberal state. With the widening of the suffrage in 1912 which meant the beginnings of a mass Catholic party the Liberal state seemed in dire straits. Giolitti was an extremely able politician but he solved none of the essential problems. In 1914 there was still no central constituitional (Liberal) party, and there were several parties which had little time for the Liberal state and despised democratic liberties. The end of Giolitti marked the end of the Liberal era - the Liberal state. After 1914 'most governments in Italy were either nationalist, or Catholic, or both'.25
Conclusion
This essay is entitled 'The Failure of the Liberal State'. By this I meant that the Italy formed after 1861 -the Liberal state - failed to gained legitmacy for itself, failed to reconcile legal Italy and 'real' Italy, and thus failed to ensure the its own survival. In 1914 the divide between North and South was, if anything, worse, with the South still a agricultural semi-feudal society while the North industrialized. In the 1911 census 37% of Italians were still illiterate, and the proportion was massively higher in the South than in the North, and in the countryside as opposed to the towns. Italy remained a divided country with little agreement among Italians on 'basic ideological, educational or social aims.'26 The Liberal state had bribed or bullied the people, never given them control. The country was still governed by a narrow elite with no legitimacy, which manipulated the people it despised. In the authoritarianism and failure of Liberal rule lay the rise of Fascism and modern Italy's crisis.
B.A. Haddock , 'Italy: independence and unification without power' in Themes In Modern European History, Ed. B. Waller (Routledge 1990). Pg. 92.↩
Ibid. Pg. 92.↩
Ibid. Pg. 93.↩
Ibid. Pg. 96.↩
P. Ginsborg, 'A History Of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943-1988'. (Penguin 1990). Pg. 2.↩
Martin Clark, 'Modern Italy 1871-1982'. (Longman 1984). Pg. 38.↩
Ibid. Pg. 53.↩
Ibid. Pg. 54.↩
Ibid. Pg. 62.↩
Ibid. Pg. 66.↩
Ibid. Pg. 92.↩
Ibid. Pg. 94.↩
Ibid. Pg. 97.↩
Ibid. Pg. 98.↩
Ibid. Pg. 105.↩
Ibid. Pg. 106.↩
Ibid. Pg. 108.↩
Ibid. Pg. 112.↩
Ibid. Pg. 117.↩
Ibid. Pg. 137.↩
Ibid. Pg. 136.↩
Ibid. Pg. 131.↩
Ibid. Pg. 32.↩
Ibid. Pg. 157.↩
Ibid. Pg. 159.↩
Ibid. Pg. 177.↩
The scope of this blog is to explain for the world what Neapolitan Independentism is.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Terroni: All That Has Been Done to Ensure That the Italians of the South Became "Southerners"
English publication of "Terroni" - A book about the Neapolitan genocide. In my opinion the english title and subtitle sounds horrendous, more horrendous than in italian, it should be "All That Has Been Done to Ensure That the Neapolitans and Sicilians became Southerns", but never mind.
This book can be "a spark that lights the fire" and awaken the old national pride of Neapolitan emigrants. When they discover that they have been cheated because of Italy's unification and the general history of Italian unification is a fake written by the winners.
In his book, Aprile explains, through a series of anecdotes and historical events, how Neapolitans and Sicilians has been robbed, how those people have been transformed to a poor and derided "minority". Napolitania's and Sicily's decline began with the unification of Italy, today resulting in an abyss in comparasion with the socio-economic development experience by northern Italian regions and the rest of Europe. Naples for 150 years ago, culturally and socio-economic development was at same level as Paris, just after London.
The book's title is a political statement. Aprile uses the word "terroni", which is a pejorative term used by North Italians to denigrate Neapolitans and Sicilians. Into the subtitle, Aprile uses the word "Meridionali", which translated means "southerners," and even that word is used by North Italians as a pejorative term, rather than in geographical mean.
Aprile relates events happened for 150 years ago to the present day in a skilful manner, he shows the similarity between the past and current events, or he shows causal connections between the events of the past and the present. He talks about how the government of Piedmont put up the first concentration camps in 1860, where thousands of Neapolitans soldiers loyal to the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was deported and left to die of cold and starvation, this happened about 80 years before the Nazi's infamous concentration camps in Europe. The similarities between the Nazis and the Piedmontese soldiers are reported by Aprile, when he describes how villages Pontelandolfo and Casalduni was destroyed by troops from the Bersaglieri, the infantry in August 1861, just as the Nazis destroyed the Marzabotto in September 1944. In both cases, civilians were massacred in response to attacks on occupation troops from irregular troops. Aprile also makes a comparison between the torture used by the U.S. military at Abu Graib with the Piedmontese were doing in the years after the unification of Italy. His comparisons between then and today's events, making it easier for the reader to immediately relate to the horrors that happened 150 years ago.
Aprile is based on an extensive amount of data from official government sources in Italy in order to demonstrate causal relationships between historical events and the current situation in Napolitania and Sicily.
One of the most surprising fact in this book is the value of the Treasury in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, which was in excess of 443 million lire in gold, compared to just 20 million lira in paper money that the invading Kingdom of Sardinia had (as the Piedmont State was known as the unification of Italy ). The kingdom of Two Sicilies contributed with actually 60% of the total aggregate value of the new state of Italy, money that of course was brought to north, and was used to pay the debts of the Royal House of Savoy, the royal family that ruled the newly formed Kingdom of Italy, and who had been involved in wars against their neighbors for years. This money was used also unfairly to finance industrial development in Northern Italy.
Aprile remarks that money from the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, ironically, has been used to modernize northern Italy and to a small proportion has been allowed to rifle back to the South in the form of public aid and loans. In short, Neapolitans and Sicilians had ended up having to borrow their own money.
The book tells the story of pioneer industries in Napolitania, as the unification of Italy either shut down or run out of business due to a bias-driven competition from northern Italy, or as a result of specific political decisions of the newly formed Italian state. Metal Industries in Mongiana and Pietrarsa, shipyard of Castellammare, textile industry in Salerno, and sulfur mines in Sicily was the crown jewels before the unification of Italy and pretended to go over or reduced to second-class activities after the unification of Italy.
The most striking aspect of the book for a Neapolitan or Sicilian is that coincidence with the Italian unification withe mass immigration from southern Italy. The so-called "Questione Meridionale" was only a product of the invasion by Piedmont. Millions of Neapolitans and Sicilians left her occupied and impoverished countries to reach the shores of America, South America, Australia and other destinations.
Aprile says that immediately after the unification of Italy, Neapolitans and Sicilians realized that they were ripped off and revolted, by forming irregular armies, which came to be called "Briganti" of enemies from Piedmont. The book says that these soldiers' heroic resistance against an occupying power that sent 120,000 regular soldiers who fought in more than 10 years to quell the rebellion. The irregular troops were composed of former soldiers from the defeated Neapolitan Army, farmers and idealists who were unhappy over the Piedmontese occupation of their homeland.
Aprile is not particularly generous to the Italian national hero, Garibaldi, who made agreements with local criminals to conquest the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.
Aprile's book is a call to action for Neapolitans and Sicilians, with emphasis on theirs proud history, to take their courage to stay up and combat the prejudices and the injustices.
This book has been i bestseller in Italy, and now when it is translated into English, we hope that it will open the eyes of millions of Neapolitans and Sicilians spread beyond the sphere. It would make them understand why they were born in America, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Australia, etc.. They also will understand how heroic their ancestors were when they fought against a brutal occupying force, supported by Britain, France and other major powers who wanted to eradicate the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.
1860 News from Europe
Reinforcements for Garibaldi. The Crisis in Naples and Rome. DEBATES IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. The San Juan Dispute and Recall of Gen. Harney. FUNERAL OF PRINCE JEROME. Independence Day in Paris. SPREAD OF THE WAR IN SYRIA.
Published: July 21, 1860
(source: http://www.nytimes.com/1860/07/21/news/interesting-europe-africa-revolution-southern-italy-reinforcements-for-garibaldi.html?pagewanted=print)
The Royal Mail steamship Africa, Capt. SHANNON, which sailed from Liverpool at 10 o'clock, on the morning of the 7th, and from Queenstown on the evening of the 8th inst., arrived at this port yesterday morning.
The advices by the Africa are not so late as those brought by the Connaught and telegraphed from St. Johns; but our correspondence and details from foreign journals are interesting, and are of two days later date.
No movement is reported either in Sicily or on the mainland.
GARIBALDI, in a letter to the Italian Committee in London, points out the urgent need he has for a flotilla, and suggests that they might possibly procure for him a couple of steamers armed with Armstrong guns.
A Naples telegram of the 2d inst., says:
"The state of siege has been raised; the Constitution of 1848 has been proclaimed, the Press laws of 1848 and 1849 have been reestablished, the Chambers are convoked for the 10th of September, and the National Guard has been provisionally reestablished. Naples is tranquil.
Signor FRESCOBALDI, the representative of the Duke of Tuscany, has taken down the escutcheon of the Grand Duchy."
It is asserted that the most violent pressure was being exercised by the French Emperor on both the Courts of Naples and Turin, for the enforcement of a confederation equally repugnant to the one and the other.
The semi-official Opinione, of Turin, in reference to the proposed alliance with Naples, says:
"The Ministry firmly adheres to the national principle, and refuses to enter into any engagement which might carry them away from the line of policy they have always followed. It is necessary to temporize, in order to neutralize the activity of diplomatists, who think that Piedmont, to save the Neapolitan dynasty, should adhere to the proposed alliance. Such an alliance is inadmissible on account of the opposition of public opinion."
The Independence Belge says that Piedmont has placed conditions on the acceptance of the alliance with Naples, which are equivalent to a refusal. For instance, the Government has demanded that the Neapolitan Government not only recognize the annexation of Romagna, but the probable annexation of the Marches and of Umbria. The relations between the Court of Naples and the Holy See renders such a course impossible.
The northern states that the conditions which the Court of Turin desire to impose on Naples were as follows: 1. The Government of Naples shall definitively break with Austria. 2. It shall give, and cause to be accepted at Rome, the counsels which itself has received and accepted. 3. It shall adopt a line of policy tending to the complete independence of Italy. 4. Promised reforms shall be really effected.
A letter from Genoa says the Sicilian loan of 45,000,000 francs was almost concluded. It would be issued at 85, and to be reimbursed in fifteen years by annual drawings.
Provisions, arms and camp materials were being continually sent off to Sicily, and as to men, Genoa contained quite an army of volunteers from all parts.
The French Consul at Genoa had refused to sign the papers of a captain of a French steamer who had engaged to convey volunteers to Palermo. There were 4,000 volunteers ready at Genoa to depart.
A telegram dated Naples the 5th announces that a Commission had been appointed to draw up laws on the following subjects: The National Guard, Administrations, Council of State and Ministerial responsibility.
Naples was tranquil, and the Constitutional party was described as more consolidated.
A telegram dated Naples, July 5, announces that GARIBALDI had marched against Messina.
A rumor was current that a movement of Roman troops towards the Neapolitan frontiers had taken place.
The reforms which the Papal Government had decided upon granting were to be promulgated shortly in a motu proprio. Among other concessions the Pope grants to the Consulta of State a deliberative vote on all financial questions, in which, until now, it had only a consultative vote; but these reforms are to be granted on condition of the integrity of the patrimony of St. Peter being guaranteed.
The state of affairs in Southern Italy had been the subject of debate in both Houses of the British Parliament.
The only additional suspension of importance in the leather trade is that of LAWRENCE, MORTIMORE & CO., of Liverpool, the corresponding firm of STREATFIELD, LAWRENCE & CO., of London, with liabilities estimated at £300,000. Efforts were being made to avert forced sales and thereby avert any extravagant depreciation in the value of hides and leather. The London Herald believes that 12s. to 14s. in the pound may be obtained all round from the suspending firms if moderation be shown.
The British steamer Bulldog had sailed for the purpose of taking soundings on the projected route of the North Atlantic Telegraph Cable. The late Arctic cruiser Fox was expected to leave Southampton about the middle of July for the same destination.
The vote of credit, on account of the war with China, required by Government, amounts to £3,800,000 sterling.
The Dublin Evening Post gives a rumor that the Galway line had concluded an arrangement for a transfer of the mail subsidy to a rival Company. The Galway Vindicator says that the negotiations were still pending, and that the Canadian line had offered £200,000, while the London Directors demanded £240,000 for the interest of the line. The Irish shareholders were averse to the transfer.
The Russian Ambassador at Paris had officially notified the French Government of the adhesion of Russia to the proposition for the assembling of a European Conference at Paris on the Savoy question.
The session of the Corps Legislatif, which was to be concluded on the 14th inst., would be prolonged to the 21st on account of the amount of business remaining for discussion.
It is confirmed that the Neapolitan Minister at Paris had sent his resignation to Naples.
The American residents in Paris gave a fete champetre on the 4th of July. Mr. COBDEN was present.
The Paris Bourse was firm and animated. Rentes closed on the 6th at 68.95.
It is asserted that the leading members of the Council of the Empire had agreed to advise the Emperor to grant a Constitution to his subjects, and that a motion to that effect would soon be formally brought before the Council.
Messrs. BARING BROTHERS & CO. had announced that the subscriptions in Amsterdam and London to the new £8,000,000 Russian loan amounted to £5,000,000, and that the allotments for that amount had been issued. Russia engages not to offer the remaining £3,000,000 before January, 1861, and then not below the prices or conditions of the subscription just closed. The new stock was quoted in London at par to 1/2 premium.
Prince BARIATINSKI had undertaken an expedition against a tribe of the mountains near the Caspian sea, who were giving trouble to the Russians.
The civil war in Syria was raging with unabated violence at latest dates.
The Druses had attacked the town of Zahli, the last refuge of the Christians, and burnt it down. It is said that 1,000 Christians were murdered.
Upwards of 60 villages are reported to have been destroyed.
The Bombay Mails of June 7th, and Melbourne of May 18th, reached Marseilles on the 6th.
The only items of news telegraphed are -- that disturbances had taken place at Bansweera, and that Gen. OUTRAM's protest against the amalgamation of the two armies in India had been published.
Published: July 21, 1860
(source: http://www.nytimes.com/1860/07/21/news/interesting-europe-africa-revolution-southern-italy-reinforcements-for-garibaldi.html?pagewanted=print)
The Royal Mail steamship Africa, Capt. SHANNON, which sailed from Liverpool at 10 o'clock, on the morning of the 7th, and from Queenstown on the evening of the 8th inst., arrived at this port yesterday morning.
The advices by the Africa are not so late as those brought by the Connaught and telegraphed from St. Johns; but our correspondence and details from foreign journals are interesting, and are of two days later date.
No movement is reported either in Sicily or on the mainland.
GARIBALDI, in a letter to the Italian Committee in London, points out the urgent need he has for a flotilla, and suggests that they might possibly procure for him a couple of steamers armed with Armstrong guns.
A Naples telegram of the 2d inst., says:
"The state of siege has been raised; the Constitution of 1848 has been proclaimed, the Press laws of 1848 and 1849 have been reestablished, the Chambers are convoked for the 10th of September, and the National Guard has been provisionally reestablished. Naples is tranquil.
Signor FRESCOBALDI, the representative of the Duke of Tuscany, has taken down the escutcheon of the Grand Duchy."
It is asserted that the most violent pressure was being exercised by the French Emperor on both the Courts of Naples and Turin, for the enforcement of a confederation equally repugnant to the one and the other.
The semi-official Opinione, of Turin, in reference to the proposed alliance with Naples, says:
"The Ministry firmly adheres to the national principle, and refuses to enter into any engagement which might carry them away from the line of policy they have always followed. It is necessary to temporize, in order to neutralize the activity of diplomatists, who think that Piedmont, to save the Neapolitan dynasty, should adhere to the proposed alliance. Such an alliance is inadmissible on account of the opposition of public opinion."
The Independence Belge says that Piedmont has placed conditions on the acceptance of the alliance with Naples, which are equivalent to a refusal. For instance, the Government has demanded that the Neapolitan Government not only recognize the annexation of Romagna, but the probable annexation of the Marches and of Umbria. The relations between the Court of Naples and the Holy See renders such a course impossible.
The northern states that the conditions which the Court of Turin desire to impose on Naples were as follows: 1. The Government of Naples shall definitively break with Austria. 2. It shall give, and cause to be accepted at Rome, the counsels which itself has received and accepted. 3. It shall adopt a line of policy tending to the complete independence of Italy. 4. Promised reforms shall be really effected.
A letter from Genoa says the Sicilian loan of 45,000,000 francs was almost concluded. It would be issued at 85, and to be reimbursed in fifteen years by annual drawings.
Provisions, arms and camp materials were being continually sent off to Sicily, and as to men, Genoa contained quite an army of volunteers from all parts.
The French Consul at Genoa had refused to sign the papers of a captain of a French steamer who had engaged to convey volunteers to Palermo. There were 4,000 volunteers ready at Genoa to depart.
A telegram dated Naples the 5th announces that a Commission had been appointed to draw up laws on the following subjects: The National Guard, Administrations, Council of State and Ministerial responsibility.
Naples was tranquil, and the Constitutional party was described as more consolidated.
A telegram dated Naples, July 5, announces that GARIBALDI had marched against Messina.
A rumor was current that a movement of Roman troops towards the Neapolitan frontiers had taken place.
The reforms which the Papal Government had decided upon granting were to be promulgated shortly in a motu proprio. Among other concessions the Pope grants to the Consulta of State a deliberative vote on all financial questions, in which, until now, it had only a consultative vote; but these reforms are to be granted on condition of the integrity of the patrimony of St. Peter being guaranteed.
The state of affairs in Southern Italy had been the subject of debate in both Houses of the British Parliament.
The only additional suspension of importance in the leather trade is that of LAWRENCE, MORTIMORE & CO., of Liverpool, the corresponding firm of STREATFIELD, LAWRENCE & CO., of London, with liabilities estimated at £300,000. Efforts were being made to avert forced sales and thereby avert any extravagant depreciation in the value of hides and leather. The London Herald believes that 12s. to 14s. in the pound may be obtained all round from the suspending firms if moderation be shown.
The British steamer Bulldog had sailed for the purpose of taking soundings on the projected route of the North Atlantic Telegraph Cable. The late Arctic cruiser Fox was expected to leave Southampton about the middle of July for the same destination.
The vote of credit, on account of the war with China, required by Government, amounts to £3,800,000 sterling.
The Dublin Evening Post gives a rumor that the Galway line had concluded an arrangement for a transfer of the mail subsidy to a rival Company. The Galway Vindicator says that the negotiations were still pending, and that the Canadian line had offered £200,000, while the London Directors demanded £240,000 for the interest of the line. The Irish shareholders were averse to the transfer.
The Russian Ambassador at Paris had officially notified the French Government of the adhesion of Russia to the proposition for the assembling of a European Conference at Paris on the Savoy question.
The session of the Corps Legislatif, which was to be concluded on the 14th inst., would be prolonged to the 21st on account of the amount of business remaining for discussion.
It is confirmed that the Neapolitan Minister at Paris had sent his resignation to Naples.
The American residents in Paris gave a fete champetre on the 4th of July. Mr. COBDEN was present.
The Paris Bourse was firm and animated. Rentes closed on the 6th at 68.95.
It is asserted that the leading members of the Council of the Empire had agreed to advise the Emperor to grant a Constitution to his subjects, and that a motion to that effect would soon be formally brought before the Council.
Messrs. BARING BROTHERS & CO. had announced that the subscriptions in Amsterdam and London to the new £8,000,000 Russian loan amounted to £5,000,000, and that the allotments for that amount had been issued. Russia engages not to offer the remaining £3,000,000 before January, 1861, and then not below the prices or conditions of the subscription just closed. The new stock was quoted in London at par to 1/2 premium.
Prince BARIATINSKI had undertaken an expedition against a tribe of the mountains near the Caspian sea, who were giving trouble to the Russians.
The civil war in Syria was raging with unabated violence at latest dates.
The Druses had attacked the town of Zahli, the last refuge of the Christians, and burnt it down. It is said that 1,000 Christians were murdered.
Upwards of 60 villages are reported to have been destroyed.
The Bombay Mails of June 7th, and Melbourne of May 18th, reached Marseilles on the 6th.
The only items of news telegraphed are -- that disturbances had taken place at Bansweera, and that Gen. OUTRAM's protest against the amalgamation of the two armies in India had been published.
Interview held with Arrigo Petacco
Here is an interview held with Arrigo Petacco, author of "Il regno del Sud" (The Kingdom of the South). One thing is certain, namely that everything we were taught and that our children are being taught in school is false. We are living in a historical never-never land called the “Risorgimento” without ever having risen the first time around and we are about to enter into another new era, that of Padania, something that has never before existed. As they say, the important thing is to believe it.
A.Petacco: "Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini are acknowledged as being the fathers of the Homeland but, if the truth be told, they hated each other, all of them hated each other with a passion. Cavour played Garibaldi, he exploited him, and Garibaldi defended himself. Mazzini was hated by both of them, however, the history books insist on having them side by side because, when all is said and done, all three of them contributed towards national unity."Blog: "It is believed that the Unity of Italy is the fruit of the ideas of the “Risorgimento”, yet it was actually entirely the result of a plot cooked up in a health spa?"A. Petacco: "There are plots everywhere. In actual fact, no one really wanted the unity of Italy. At the time, they were all federalists at heart, including Cavour. Indeed, Cavour was definitely a federalist and Mazzini was the only one that really wanted national unity, which Cavour labelled as “tomfoolery” because he didn’t believe in it. After all, he thought in French, spoke French and had never travelled further south than Florence. But he dreamt of an Italy consisting of three States, a Northern State (see the Savoias), which he claimed would be the wealthiest in Europe, a Central State, a Franco-Italian combination, and he also wanted to retain the Kingdom of the Bourbons. He did everything possible to save the Kingdom of the Bourbons. Unfortunately, Francesco II, the one they nicknamed “Franceschiello”, who was a great fellow but was only twenty years old, didn’t get the picture, the deal that Cavour had offered him, and refused. He refused, putting the fate of his kingdom on the line.
A series of plotsBlog: "Why was General Garibaldi’s expedition set up at a certain point?A. Petacco: "Well, the expedition was a surprise because no one wanted it. Cavour didn’t want it and even tried to send in the Carabinieri. He wanted to send in the Carabinieri to halt the expedition because he knew that by invading Sicily he would be violating his pact with Napoleon III to create a federal Italy. There was actually a whole series of plots because King Victor Emmanuel II, who wanted to enlarge his kingdom instead, secretly told Garibaldi to go ahead while officially ordering him to stop. Garibaldi disobeyed the king’s orders and invaded Sicily. This was incredible because everyone thought, indeed Cavour thought: “They will meet the same fate as Pisacane”, in other words, they would be pitchforked by the farmers as happened before elsewhere. Instead, by some miracle, these thousand men, of whom only 18 were native Sicilians while the remainder were all northerners from the Bergamo area, were almost all grandfathers of the current members of the Lega and they were the ones that went down and conquered Sicily and the entire Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. So he conquered a kingdom and handed it over to King Victor Emmanuel II, saying: “I give you the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”. Then he went off to Caprera because he was an honest man, somewhat naïve perhaps, and was convinced that he had created a united Italy, and indeed he had because, without him, Italy would never have been united.Blog: "The people hailed him as a hero and a liberator, but the question I have to ask myself, a reality call if you will: what propaganda machine was set up at the time to spread Garibaldi’s message?A. Petacco: "Well, the propaganda at the time was very refined and extremely subtle, because 90 percent of the population was out of reach and because 90 percent of the population was illiterate, they didn’t really give a damn about national unity, so the population did not participate. There were no labourers or farmers amongst the thousand men than went to Sicily, they were all lawyers, doctors, mainly lawyers and students, let’s say all members of the ruling Middle class."Blog: "Who was it that took up arms " A. Petacco: "Those that took up arms were the middle class, on behalf of their king. The general population did not take and was indeed sympathetic to Bakunin che voleva l’anarchia."Blog, who was preaching anarchy."Blog: "In other words, the Italy that we know today is in fact the result of contrivance rather than a natural process?" A. Petacco: "Absolutely not. I don’t know that it was entirely a natural process but, on the other hand, as Franceschiello was wont to say, they call it Risorgimento (Resurgence), but in order to resurge, you have to have surged in the first place, while Italy has never really existed. Poor Franceschiello used to say that “My kingdom has been here for centuries, but since Roman times there has never been a united Italy”. It was therefore somewhat paradoxical to call it Risorgimento”, but the word had a certain attraction."Blog: "Shall we say that, if he were alive today, Cavour would not claim this united Italy?" A. Petacco: "No, it’s a pity that Cavour died accidentally at age 50, just two months after national unity, it was said at the time that it was his punishment from God. The Kingdom was proclaimed in March 1861 and he died in May, so he didn’t actually get to see the united Italy, but he did have some very different plans than those that were later implemented. At that stage Italy was united and he too had become a unificationist by necessity, however, he wanted to create a number of large autonomous regions with large autonomous localities. Instead, the King and his successors chose to centralise, or rather “piedmontise” the whole of Italy and immediately after the proclamation of the kingdom, all of the Piedmont laws were made fully applicable both in Lombardy and in Sicily, including military service, milling taxes and, above all, things that were not particularly palatable, so much so that in the south, ….."Blog: "Shall we just say that they were not perceived as being particularly good for the purposes of creating order?A. Petacco: "But then there was a rebellion, and what was labelled as banditry was actually the actions of partisans, not bandits. These were partisans that occasionally acted like bandits, as often happens in war, however, they were mainly former Bourbon soldiers that had been abandoned by their former generals who had sought refuge. They had fought, they had fought for five years and for five years they had kept some 120-thousand men of the Piedmontese army busy. So these were not merely common chicken thieves, no, this was something very serious.
The federalist Italy and Cavour’s dreamBlog: "Now let’s move on to modern times. Italian politics witnessed the eruption of a phenomenon that had previously been just that, merely a phenomenon, but that has now become an organised regional political party known as the Lega Nord. Today the newspapers talk about a northern bank, northern industry, northern workers and differentiated taxation. Are these merely a throwback to those earlier ideals?A. Petacco: "No, no, that has nothing to do with it. The truth is that, in essence, these two Italies were never really united and they remain two separate Italies: the Lombardy farmer is different from the Sicilian farmer. They have different mentalities, different traditions, different habits and then there is also a kind of racism – if we can call it that – that we have never quite been able to completely eradicate, also because the south does not always set a good example."Blog: "The plans for a federalist Italy, in your opinion, are these merely a resurgence of Cavour’s ideals?"A. Petacco: "Yes. He tended to see things more in a political light than any other, but in the book, I seem to remember that there was a note regarding what he wanted. Each region, he called them large regional airports, namely three or four regions that he wanted to call the Kingdom centrally controlled by the police and the army, with the rest delegated to local authorities, so our world would have looked very different indeed. The South, instead, was not merely an abandoned country as the history of the Risorgenza would have us believe. Naples had a railway system before Turin did. In Naples, they were building the first large steamships well before Genoa did. The Kingdom of Naples already had steel factories, iron, cast iron and they were already building steel bridges! They already had a significant potential industrial system going. The northerners took everything. A man called Bastogi from Livorno came along and created a railway monopoly and essentially the north prevented the growth of the south and so, that is what happened. In a meeting with the young industrialists of Naples, Tremonti himself stated that: “Well, after all is said and done, we are truly indebted to you and you deserve to be compensated”. Tremonti himself said this so, obviously these things really did happen."Blog: "Certain people might classify this as the Lega Nord ideology, but instead I hear you using very different terms."A. Petacco: "Lega Nord ideology you say?! You’re crazy! I sympathise because at the moment, I have to admit that where they are governing, the politicians are different. I have had the opportunity to meet some of them and I must say, they seem to feel that they are better than everyone else and they tend to look down on you. When you ask them a question and they look down their noses at you, like D’Alema for example, who is essentially thinking: “Let’s hear what bullshit this guy wants to tell me!” You can see it! While these people are just like you, that is what makes them likeable, but unfortunately they too will get worse. I don’t believe in perfection and as soon as they manage get their hands on power, corruption will undoubtedly follow. Corruption follows democracy and wherever there is democracy, there is also corruption because politicians need votes and they are prepared to do anything to get those votes. Instead, in a dictatorship, no votes are needed so there is less corruption because there is less of everything, except for pitchforks, hangings and deaths by firing squad. So perhaps it’s better for us to keep these thieves! I don’t know if I am making myself clear."
Blog: "Is the Kingdom of the North a very real risk or is there merely a possibility that it could materialise?"A. Petacco: "If things continue as they are, it could become a very real possibility."Blog: "Can you picture an Italy that splits up? Is this a possibility in your opinion? We have a very rigid Constitution that contains some very specific restrictions ….. "A. Petacco: "I cannot see this happening, but what I do see is that federalism will undoubtedly increase the existing gap between certain regions and others and between the north and the south."Blog: "History is written by the victors. Do you also have a very noble vision of revisionism? I ask because the things that are written in this book are very different from what we find in the school books."A. Petacco: "The fact is that there is one inescapable rule in life, namely that whenever war breaks out, the first casualty is always the truth, because the truth is bothersome and if you wish to demonise the enemy, you also have to tell some lies about him. Once the war has ended, these lies told by the losers are inevitably revealed for what they are, while those of the victors become history. Furthermore, it is not easy to chip away these untruths that have become history. Even my books attract some interest, however, it will remain extremely difficult to erase certain untruths. Let me give you an example: if you care to remember the first War of Independence (1848), when Piedmont very courageously declared war on Austria, Naples and the Vatican came to its aid and took sides in the early days of the war. Also, a number of Neapolitan and Pontifical military units fought in Lombardy.At Curtatone and Montanara, a historical event occurred that went down in history. The schoolbooks tell us that the university students of Pisa stopped the Austrians that were about to outflank the army of Carlo Alberto. In reality, it was not the university students of Pisa. The students of Pisa were indeed there, but they ran away at the first sign of gunfire and all that remained was a Neapolitan battalion under the command of a Neapolitan colonel, who held fast and managed to repel the Austrians. This is an historical fact and indeed the Austrian Army’s war diaries in Vienna also mention the name and number of the commander in question. When the first War of Independence ended and Naples had meanwhile retreated, the Pope and the Piedmontese historians that were writing about the war faced some embarrassment and thought: “Oh dear, the only true and noble act was performed by a Neapolitan. There’s no way that we can give credit to the Neapolitans, it will be a disgrace for us!” So they invented the story that the Pisa students had not only gloriously stopped the Austrians, but also that their commander was Giuseppe Montanelli. They even managed to arrange that the peak of the university hats be cut in half, something they didn’t deserve.This is the story that I told to my friend Indro Montanelli, a descendant of the aforesaid commander. I told him that: “Look Indro, this is the truth” and he answered: “Oh, I know that, but I can’t exactly get upset with my grandfather!” and then proceeded to confirm the affair of the Pisa students in his history book. Get it? That is the way history works! "
A.Petacco: "Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini are acknowledged as being the fathers of the Homeland but, if the truth be told, they hated each other, all of them hated each other with a passion. Cavour played Garibaldi, he exploited him, and Garibaldi defended himself. Mazzini was hated by both of them, however, the history books insist on having them side by side because, when all is said and done, all three of them contributed towards national unity."Blog: "It is believed that the Unity of Italy is the fruit of the ideas of the “Risorgimento”, yet it was actually entirely the result of a plot cooked up in a health spa?"A. Petacco: "There are plots everywhere. In actual fact, no one really wanted the unity of Italy. At the time, they were all federalists at heart, including Cavour. Indeed, Cavour was definitely a federalist and Mazzini was the only one that really wanted national unity, which Cavour labelled as “tomfoolery” because he didn’t believe in it. After all, he thought in French, spoke French and had never travelled further south than Florence. But he dreamt of an Italy consisting of three States, a Northern State (see the Savoias), which he claimed would be the wealthiest in Europe, a Central State, a Franco-Italian combination, and he also wanted to retain the Kingdom of the Bourbons. He did everything possible to save the Kingdom of the Bourbons. Unfortunately, Francesco II, the one they nicknamed “Franceschiello”, who was a great fellow but was only twenty years old, didn’t get the picture, the deal that Cavour had offered him, and refused. He refused, putting the fate of his kingdom on the line.
A series of plotsBlog: "Why was General Garibaldi’s expedition set up at a certain point?A. Petacco: "Well, the expedition was a surprise because no one wanted it. Cavour didn’t want it and even tried to send in the Carabinieri. He wanted to send in the Carabinieri to halt the expedition because he knew that by invading Sicily he would be violating his pact with Napoleon III to create a federal Italy. There was actually a whole series of plots because King Victor Emmanuel II, who wanted to enlarge his kingdom instead, secretly told Garibaldi to go ahead while officially ordering him to stop. Garibaldi disobeyed the king’s orders and invaded Sicily. This was incredible because everyone thought, indeed Cavour thought: “They will meet the same fate as Pisacane”, in other words, they would be pitchforked by the farmers as happened before elsewhere. Instead, by some miracle, these thousand men, of whom only 18 were native Sicilians while the remainder were all northerners from the Bergamo area, were almost all grandfathers of the current members of the Lega and they were the ones that went down and conquered Sicily and the entire Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. So he conquered a kingdom and handed it over to King Victor Emmanuel II, saying: “I give you the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”. Then he went off to Caprera because he was an honest man, somewhat naïve perhaps, and was convinced that he had created a united Italy, and indeed he had because, without him, Italy would never have been united.Blog: "The people hailed him as a hero and a liberator, but the question I have to ask myself, a reality call if you will: what propaganda machine was set up at the time to spread Garibaldi’s message?A. Petacco: "Well, the propaganda at the time was very refined and extremely subtle, because 90 percent of the population was out of reach and because 90 percent of the population was illiterate, they didn’t really give a damn about national unity, so the population did not participate. There were no labourers or farmers amongst the thousand men than went to Sicily, they were all lawyers, doctors, mainly lawyers and students, let’s say all members of the ruling Middle class."Blog: "Who was it that took up arms " A. Petacco: "Those that took up arms were the middle class, on behalf of their king. The general population did not take and was indeed sympathetic to Bakunin che voleva l’anarchia."Blog, who was preaching anarchy."Blog: "In other words, the Italy that we know today is in fact the result of contrivance rather than a natural process?" A. Petacco: "Absolutely not. I don’t know that it was entirely a natural process but, on the other hand, as Franceschiello was wont to say, they call it Risorgimento (Resurgence), but in order to resurge, you have to have surged in the first place, while Italy has never really existed. Poor Franceschiello used to say that “My kingdom has been here for centuries, but since Roman times there has never been a united Italy”. It was therefore somewhat paradoxical to call it Risorgimento”, but the word had a certain attraction."Blog: "Shall we say that, if he were alive today, Cavour would not claim this united Italy?" A. Petacco: "No, it’s a pity that Cavour died accidentally at age 50, just two months after national unity, it was said at the time that it was his punishment from God. The Kingdom was proclaimed in March 1861 and he died in May, so he didn’t actually get to see the united Italy, but he did have some very different plans than those that were later implemented. At that stage Italy was united and he too had become a unificationist by necessity, however, he wanted to create a number of large autonomous regions with large autonomous localities. Instead, the King and his successors chose to centralise, or rather “piedmontise” the whole of Italy and immediately after the proclamation of the kingdom, all of the Piedmont laws were made fully applicable both in Lombardy and in Sicily, including military service, milling taxes and, above all, things that were not particularly palatable, so much so that in the south, ….."Blog: "Shall we just say that they were not perceived as being particularly good for the purposes of creating order?A. Petacco: "But then there was a rebellion, and what was labelled as banditry was actually the actions of partisans, not bandits. These were partisans that occasionally acted like bandits, as often happens in war, however, they were mainly former Bourbon soldiers that had been abandoned by their former generals who had sought refuge. They had fought, they had fought for five years and for five years they had kept some 120-thousand men of the Piedmontese army busy. So these were not merely common chicken thieves, no, this was something very serious.
The federalist Italy and Cavour’s dreamBlog: "Now let’s move on to modern times. Italian politics witnessed the eruption of a phenomenon that had previously been just that, merely a phenomenon, but that has now become an organised regional political party known as the Lega Nord. Today the newspapers talk about a northern bank, northern industry, northern workers and differentiated taxation. Are these merely a throwback to those earlier ideals?A. Petacco: "No, no, that has nothing to do with it. The truth is that, in essence, these two Italies were never really united and they remain two separate Italies: the Lombardy farmer is different from the Sicilian farmer. They have different mentalities, different traditions, different habits and then there is also a kind of racism – if we can call it that – that we have never quite been able to completely eradicate, also because the south does not always set a good example."Blog: "The plans for a federalist Italy, in your opinion, are these merely a resurgence of Cavour’s ideals?"A. Petacco: "Yes. He tended to see things more in a political light than any other, but in the book, I seem to remember that there was a note regarding what he wanted. Each region, he called them large regional airports, namely three or four regions that he wanted to call the Kingdom centrally controlled by the police and the army, with the rest delegated to local authorities, so our world would have looked very different indeed. The South, instead, was not merely an abandoned country as the history of the Risorgenza would have us believe. Naples had a railway system before Turin did. In Naples, they were building the first large steamships well before Genoa did. The Kingdom of Naples already had steel factories, iron, cast iron and they were already building steel bridges! They already had a significant potential industrial system going. The northerners took everything. A man called Bastogi from Livorno came along and created a railway monopoly and essentially the north prevented the growth of the south and so, that is what happened. In a meeting with the young industrialists of Naples, Tremonti himself stated that: “Well, after all is said and done, we are truly indebted to you and you deserve to be compensated”. Tremonti himself said this so, obviously these things really did happen."Blog: "Certain people might classify this as the Lega Nord ideology, but instead I hear you using very different terms."A. Petacco: "Lega Nord ideology you say?! You’re crazy! I sympathise because at the moment, I have to admit that where they are governing, the politicians are different. I have had the opportunity to meet some of them and I must say, they seem to feel that they are better than everyone else and they tend to look down on you. When you ask them a question and they look down their noses at you, like D’Alema for example, who is essentially thinking: “Let’s hear what bullshit this guy wants to tell me!” You can see it! While these people are just like you, that is what makes them likeable, but unfortunately they too will get worse. I don’t believe in perfection and as soon as they manage get their hands on power, corruption will undoubtedly follow. Corruption follows democracy and wherever there is democracy, there is also corruption because politicians need votes and they are prepared to do anything to get those votes. Instead, in a dictatorship, no votes are needed so there is less corruption because there is less of everything, except for pitchforks, hangings and deaths by firing squad. So perhaps it’s better for us to keep these thieves! I don’t know if I am making myself clear."
Blog: "Is the Kingdom of the North a very real risk or is there merely a possibility that it could materialise?"A. Petacco: "If things continue as they are, it could become a very real possibility."Blog: "Can you picture an Italy that splits up? Is this a possibility in your opinion? We have a very rigid Constitution that contains some very specific restrictions ….. "A. Petacco: "I cannot see this happening, but what I do see is that federalism will undoubtedly increase the existing gap between certain regions and others and between the north and the south."Blog: "History is written by the victors. Do you also have a very noble vision of revisionism? I ask because the things that are written in this book are very different from what we find in the school books."A. Petacco: "The fact is that there is one inescapable rule in life, namely that whenever war breaks out, the first casualty is always the truth, because the truth is bothersome and if you wish to demonise the enemy, you also have to tell some lies about him. Once the war has ended, these lies told by the losers are inevitably revealed for what they are, while those of the victors become history. Furthermore, it is not easy to chip away these untruths that have become history. Even my books attract some interest, however, it will remain extremely difficult to erase certain untruths. Let me give you an example: if you care to remember the first War of Independence (1848), when Piedmont very courageously declared war on Austria, Naples and the Vatican came to its aid and took sides in the early days of the war. Also, a number of Neapolitan and Pontifical military units fought in Lombardy.At Curtatone and Montanara, a historical event occurred that went down in history. The schoolbooks tell us that the university students of Pisa stopped the Austrians that were about to outflank the army of Carlo Alberto. In reality, it was not the university students of Pisa. The students of Pisa were indeed there, but they ran away at the first sign of gunfire and all that remained was a Neapolitan battalion under the command of a Neapolitan colonel, who held fast and managed to repel the Austrians. This is an historical fact and indeed the Austrian Army’s war diaries in Vienna also mention the name and number of the commander in question. When the first War of Independence ended and Naples had meanwhile retreated, the Pope and the Piedmontese historians that were writing about the war faced some embarrassment and thought: “Oh dear, the only true and noble act was performed by a Neapolitan. There’s no way that we can give credit to the Neapolitans, it will be a disgrace for us!” So they invented the story that the Pisa students had not only gloriously stopped the Austrians, but also that their commander was Giuseppe Montanelli. They even managed to arrange that the peak of the university hats be cut in half, something they didn’t deserve.This is the story that I told to my friend Indro Montanelli, a descendant of the aforesaid commander. I told him that: “Look Indro, this is the truth” and he answered: “Oh, I know that, but I can’t exactly get upset with my grandfather!” and then proceeded to confirm the affair of the Pisa students in his history book. Get it? That is the way history works! "
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The root of Italian racism against Neapolitans
The figure and the work of Cesare Lombroso is of a highly controversial character and a shame for a so called civilized society. His scientific work has been classified not just as worthless but also prejudicial against Neapolitans and Sicilians.
Cesare Lombeoso was born in Verona, as an Austrian subject, on November 6, 1835, and was the second child in a family of five. His father Aron sprang from a Venetian mercantile family, whose origin can be traced back to a colony of North African Jews, expelled from Spain and settled in North Africa.
The name Lombroso or Lumbroso is a Spanish adjective in common use, denoting "clear" or "illuminating".
The formation of the Hapsburg Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice put an end for the time being to equality of civil rights for the Jews and Verona was one of the few towns of the district in which Jewish boys were allowed to attend the Gymnasium (public school), now removed from the control of the freethinkers, and handed over to that of the Jesuits.
When Lombroso's mother, Zefira Levi, married Aron Lombroso in the year 1830, she stipulated that her children must be brought up in a place in which it would be possible for them to attend the higher schools.
Aron's marriage with Zefira Levi, who belonged to a rich family engaged in the higher branch of industrial life, did not suffice to prevent the onset of poverty and the youth of the five children of the marriage was passed in narrow circumstances.
Inspired by Francis Galton's theories about natural born criminality and biological conditions, Lombroso argues that typical reasons for committing a crime don't depend on the socio-economic environmental components but rather on hereditary factors and/or neurological conditions therefore independent from individuals' own will.
Lombroso beliefs were mainly based on the thesis that "the born or atavistic uncultured offender", an individual that presents degenerative features in his physical build that differentiates him from a normal socially accepted man. In the pursuit of fame and in favour of his suspicious and anti-scientific thesis, Lombroso didn't hesitate to skin corpses, cut off and dissect heads, perform the most incredible and cruel operations on men who were believed criminals in order to measure parts of their skulls and bodies, outlining unbelievable theories about the physical features of the natural born criminal. His work was strongly influenced by physiognomy, developing a pseudo-science that dealt with forensic and psychosomatic phrenology inducing him to speculate like a wizard apprentice more than a scientist in a context based on eugenics and a precursory form of the scientific racism, whose consequences would be visible in the following decades during WWII and the advent of nazism. In fact these conjectures were adopted as the foundation of the theories of German doctors about the pureness of the Aryan race, extending Lomroso's false theory to the physical features of the Hebrew and the Rom and so on, justifying their extermination.
Historically the idea that criminality is connected to physical characteristic of a person was present in Iliad of Homer and in some medieval laws that state; when there are two suspects of a crime, the one most deformed must be considered guilty. Maybe it was therefore Lombroso became convinced that the physicality was the most powerful cause of criminality and, in his analysis, he considered the anatomical configuration of the skull a very important parameter. He found an element in the skull that he believed to be a degenerative character frequently occurring in the alienated and the offender. But in reality, from an anatomic point of view, it is a frequent characteristic in individuals and it doesn't have a scientific meaning.
Badly influenced by Darwin's theories, Lombroso came to support "the born offender's" atavistic characteristics, similar to those of animals and the primitive man: these characteristics make it difficult or even impossible to adapt to the modern society and push one again and again to commit offenses. Cesare Lombroso also delineates the legal consequences of his doctrine because "crime is not the result of free choice but rather of an organic disease". The sentence must not be understood as a punishment (because 'it makes no sense to punish those who did not act freely) but simply as a means of protecting society. He always strongly supported the need for the death penalty under the Italian legal system, believing that if the crime was because of his physical characteristics then any form of rehabilitation was not possible.
These bizarre theories were contested also by his pupils (one of all was Enrico Ferri - lecturer of criminal law in Bologna, Siena, Pisa and Rome), and nowadays nobody thinks these still have scientific value. The absurdity of Cesare Lombroso's theories was been ascertained for a long time by now and represent a valid reason to rethink the assignment of the street name to commemorate Cesare Lombroso.
The figure and work of Cesare Lombroso still represent a great vulnus for all Neapolitans and Sicilians, who one strongly offended by his activities. An offence that still now has consequence for majority of them.
After receiving his bachelor in Medicine at the University of Pavia in 1858, in 1859 Cesar Lombroso enlisted himself `in the Piemontese Military, into which he was invited in 1861, to Calabria as a "medical adviser" in the campaign of repression of brigantaggio.
In Napolitania, having an abundant fleet of humans at his disposition, the doctor began a deep and uncontrolled criminology study on Calabria's population hostile to the Piemontese invasion, looking for an improbable delinquent relationship between language - uses - ways of dressing and the physical characteristics of the residents. His theories took form and were applied without concern on poor peasants whose only guilt was having the measures of the skull similar to that of famous offenders of that period. Those were conjectures that, unfortunately, found fertile land in historical context and a military atmosphere very particular: for the army's leaders it appeared really providential to have found false scientific excuses to justify the bloody repression put into effect against populations unarmed and forced to defend themselves from an invasion with devastating effects.
In this way distortions were introduced to create a negative image of Neapolitans and Sicilians: Lombroso, far from being a rigorous scientist, as appeared later, was recruited to prove, on the false and absurd basis, that the southern people were offenders at birth. The doctor from Verona measures the size and shape of the skull of many rebels that were killed or deported from Napolitania and Sicily to Piemonte (caring military doctors sent him, for years, the body or at least the skull of "briganti" - who men and women killed in battle or died in jail - so that he could measure, dissect, study and then try to prove the theory of "the natural offender"), concluding that these atavistic traits related back to the "primitive man". In reality, it was one of the most brutal physical and psychological violence, deliberately put in place against the southern people, an event entirely unworthy of the alleged craftsman of the Italian Risorgimento, and indelible damage to all of humanity as a result of Lombroso's hatred towards Neapolitans and Sicilians.
Nowadays there are a Museum in Turin (Piedmont), dedicated to this freaking figure, and this museum are exposed lots of human rests of "Briganti", the last Neapolitan patriots.
Cesare Lombeoso was born in Verona, as an Austrian subject, on November 6, 1835, and was the second child in a family of five. His father Aron sprang from a Venetian mercantile family, whose origin can be traced back to a colony of North African Jews, expelled from Spain and settled in North Africa.
The name Lombroso or Lumbroso is a Spanish adjective in common use, denoting "clear" or "illuminating".
The formation of the Hapsburg Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice put an end for the time being to equality of civil rights for the Jews and Verona was one of the few towns of the district in which Jewish boys were allowed to attend the Gymnasium (public school), now removed from the control of the freethinkers, and handed over to that of the Jesuits.
When Lombroso's mother, Zefira Levi, married Aron Lombroso in the year 1830, she stipulated that her children must be brought up in a place in which it would be possible for them to attend the higher schools.
Aron's marriage with Zefira Levi, who belonged to a rich family engaged in the higher branch of industrial life, did not suffice to prevent the onset of poverty and the youth of the five children of the marriage was passed in narrow circumstances.
Inspired by Francis Galton's theories about natural born criminality and biological conditions, Lombroso argues that typical reasons for committing a crime don't depend on the socio-economic environmental components but rather on hereditary factors and/or neurological conditions therefore independent from individuals' own will.
Lombroso beliefs were mainly based on the thesis that "the born or atavistic uncultured offender", an individual that presents degenerative features in his physical build that differentiates him from a normal socially accepted man. In the pursuit of fame and in favour of his suspicious and anti-scientific thesis, Lombroso didn't hesitate to skin corpses, cut off and dissect heads, perform the most incredible and cruel operations on men who were believed criminals in order to measure parts of their skulls and bodies, outlining unbelievable theories about the physical features of the natural born criminal. His work was strongly influenced by physiognomy, developing a pseudo-science that dealt with forensic and psychosomatic phrenology inducing him to speculate like a wizard apprentice more than a scientist in a context based on eugenics and a precursory form of the scientific racism, whose consequences would be visible in the following decades during WWII and the advent of nazism. In fact these conjectures were adopted as the foundation of the theories of German doctors about the pureness of the Aryan race, extending Lomroso's false theory to the physical features of the Hebrew and the Rom and so on, justifying their extermination.
Historically the idea that criminality is connected to physical characteristic of a person was present in Iliad of Homer and in some medieval laws that state; when there are two suspects of a crime, the one most deformed must be considered guilty. Maybe it was therefore Lombroso became convinced that the physicality was the most powerful cause of criminality and, in his analysis, he considered the anatomical configuration of the skull a very important parameter. He found an element in the skull that he believed to be a degenerative character frequently occurring in the alienated and the offender. But in reality, from an anatomic point of view, it is a frequent characteristic in individuals and it doesn't have a scientific meaning.
Badly influenced by Darwin's theories, Lombroso came to support "the born offender's" atavistic characteristics, similar to those of animals and the primitive man: these characteristics make it difficult or even impossible to adapt to the modern society and push one again and again to commit offenses. Cesare Lombroso also delineates the legal consequences of his doctrine because "crime is not the result of free choice but rather of an organic disease". The sentence must not be understood as a punishment (because 'it makes no sense to punish those who did not act freely) but simply as a means of protecting society. He always strongly supported the need for the death penalty under the Italian legal system, believing that if the crime was because of his physical characteristics then any form of rehabilitation was not possible.
These bizarre theories were contested also by his pupils (one of all was Enrico Ferri - lecturer of criminal law in Bologna, Siena, Pisa and Rome), and nowadays nobody thinks these still have scientific value. The absurdity of Cesare Lombroso's theories was been ascertained for a long time by now and represent a valid reason to rethink the assignment of the street name to commemorate Cesare Lombroso.
The figure and work of Cesare Lombroso still represent a great vulnus for all Neapolitans and Sicilians, who one strongly offended by his activities. An offence that still now has consequence for majority of them.
After receiving his bachelor in Medicine at the University of Pavia in 1858, in 1859 Cesar Lombroso enlisted himself `in the Piemontese Military, into which he was invited in 1861, to Calabria as a "medical adviser" in the campaign of repression of brigantaggio.
In Napolitania, having an abundant fleet of humans at his disposition, the doctor began a deep and uncontrolled criminology study on Calabria's population hostile to the Piemontese invasion, looking for an improbable delinquent relationship between language - uses - ways of dressing and the physical characteristics of the residents. His theories took form and were applied without concern on poor peasants whose only guilt was having the measures of the skull similar to that of famous offenders of that period. Those were conjectures that, unfortunately, found fertile land in historical context and a military atmosphere very particular: for the army's leaders it appeared really providential to have found false scientific excuses to justify the bloody repression put into effect against populations unarmed and forced to defend themselves from an invasion with devastating effects.
In this way distortions were introduced to create a negative image of Neapolitans and Sicilians: Lombroso, far from being a rigorous scientist, as appeared later, was recruited to prove, on the false and absurd basis, that the southern people were offenders at birth. The doctor from Verona measures the size and shape of the skull of many rebels that were killed or deported from Napolitania and Sicily to Piemonte (caring military doctors sent him, for years, the body or at least the skull of "briganti" - who men and women killed in battle or died in jail - so that he could measure, dissect, study and then try to prove the theory of "the natural offender"), concluding that these atavistic traits related back to the "primitive man". In reality, it was one of the most brutal physical and psychological violence, deliberately put in place against the southern people, an event entirely unworthy of the alleged craftsman of the Italian Risorgimento, and indelible damage to all of humanity as a result of Lombroso's hatred towards Neapolitans and Sicilians.
Nowadays there are a Museum in Turin (Piedmont), dedicated to this freaking figure, and this museum are exposed lots of human rests of "Briganti", the last Neapolitan patriots.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Neapolitan Nationality
Neapolitans have been a people, a nation and have had a nationality for more than 700 years. When the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was formed of a union of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples in 1816 and until 1860, during this period the secular right of Sicilians to have their own nationality was suppressed, so during this period even Sicilians had Neapolitan nationality.
Source:
http://tinyurl.com/68e5tan
http://tinyurl.com/6bps4c9
http://tinyurl.com/65ekrvo
http://tinyurl.com/5vlr4y6
http://tinyurl.com/65flj9k
http://tinyurl.com/5v25ryo
http://tinyurl.com/6ewxgsv
http://tinyurl.com/68dnqe5
http://tinyurl.com/6evxvzr
http://ilnapolitano.com/post/11652643707/i-duosiciliani-non-esistono
* The first image is from: "The boundaries of citizenship: race, ethnicity, and nationality in the liberal state" of Jeff Spinner
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)