di Pierangelo Gentile (Università di Torino)
The first Cavour government was in office until 4 May 1855. That is, for over two years, during which the Count was able to sail at full mast towards progress, regarding both the creation of infrastructures and the liberalization of trade. Elections for the 5th legislature held on 8 December 1853 had been a tool to measure the strength of the “connubio”: the alliance between the centre-right and centre-left was stronger than ever before. Naturally there were difficult moments: 1853 itself was a year of crisis due to bad grain harvests. The people of Turin. incensed at the increase of bread prices, almost stormed Palazzo Cavour. A real uprising, fuelled by the clergy, erupted in Valle d’Aosta. And in 1854 an outbreak of cholera further complicated the situation. After the upteenth failure of an uprising fomented by Mazzini in Milan, at an international level the Count had to face Austria’s hateful reprisal, who decided to confiscate the assets of the exiled, including of those who in the meantime had acquired Sardinian citizenship. Cavour deemed that act as «barbarically revolutionary». He was on the verge of retaliating by confiscating Austrian assets in Piedmont, but then a more piercing ethical political-diplomatic line prevailed: formal protestations, the ambassador in Vienna was recalled, and more importantly, aid worth 400.000 lire was allocated in favour of Lombard exiles whose assets had been seized. A generous gesture which was further proof of Cavour’s sensitivity towards the national movement. Besides, many, including disappointed democrats, were by then convinced that only Piedmont could promote and support the process of liberation of the Italian peninsula.
The first Cavour government was in office until 4 May 1855. That is, for over two years, during which the Count was able to sail at full mast towards progress, regarding both the creation of infrastructures and the liberalization of trade. Elections for the 5th legislature held on 8 December 1853 had been a tool to measure the strength of the “connubio”: the alliance between the centre-right and centre-left was stronger than ever before. Naturally there were difficult moments: 1853 itself was a year of crisis due to bad grain harvests. The people of Turin. incensed at the increase of bread prices, almost stormed Palazzo Cavour. A real uprising, fuelled by the clergy, erupted in Valle d’Aosta. And in 1854 an outbreak of cholera further complicated the situation. After the upteenth failure of an uprising fomented by Mazzini in Milan, at an international level the Count had to face Austria’s hateful reprisal, who decided to confiscate the assets of the exiled, including of those who in the meantime had acquired Sardinian citizenship. Cavour deemed that act as «barbarically revolutionary». He was on the verge of retaliating by confiscating Austrian assets in Piedmont, but then a more piercing ethical political-diplomatic line prevailed: formal protestations, the ambassador in Vienna was recalled, and more importantly, aid worth 400.000 lire was allocated in favour of Lombard exiles whose assets had been seized. A generous gesture which was further proof of Cavour’s sensitivity towards the national movement. Besides, many, including disappointed democrats, were by then convinced that only Piedmont could promote and support the process of liberation of the Italian peninsula.
Also thanks to d’Azeglio, who admonished the monarch to not squander his reputation as a «loyal king» because of a «plot by friars», on 3 May 1855 Cavour was reinstated. Thus the second government led by the Count came to be, starting off with being excommunicated after it approved the law abolishing contemplative orders. But it was a confirmation of the spirit of independence characteristic of the Savoy Kingdom. Now it could concentrate on the war, with its front deployed in faraway Crimea, on the shores of the Black Sea. A total of 21,000 men would leave Genoa led by General Alfonso La Marmora to join the British, French and Turks laying siege to the Russian base of Sevastopol.
Cavour had encouraged the commander in chief: «I’m confident you will find a way, before the end of the campaign, to bring our soldiers to the heart of the action, where they will prove their worth, I’m sure». But casualties would be mostly due to cholera rather than enemy fire: almost 2,000 soldiers, including the founder of the Bersaglieri corps, Alessandro La Marmora. Then came the long awaited baptism of fire, with a battle on the river Chyornaya: a few dozen dead, but a lot of courage. Cavour was able to praise the «admirable behaviour» of the fighters; a show of heroism he would exploit during the peace talks that started in Paris in February 1856. The days spent in the French capital were hectic for Cavour, packed with lunches, business, people to meet, evenings at the theatre; he was determined to bring home results (on his list: the annulment of confiscations, expansion of the Kingdom of Sardinia, getting Austria out of Northern Italy) at any cost, including «stimulating the patriotism of the ravishing Castiglione», his famously beautiful cousin, so she might seduce the emperor.
During the session held on 8 April the Italian issue was finally discussed, among much protesting by the Austrians. England found the governments of Rome and Naples intolerable. France had already made its point clear at the end of 1855, during Vittorio Emanuele II’s visit to Paris. Napoleone III had thus addressed Cavour: Que puis-je faire pour l’Italie? (what can I do for Italy?). Those statements and intentions put the country’s problems on the agenda, but Cavour returned to Turin empty-handed. The Count chomped at the bit: he claimed to be of «moderate opinions, rather in favour of extreme and bold means». But the fact he had managed to get the “Italian case” reopened, after it had been archived at the time of the congress of Vienna forty years earlier, was seen as an impressive result, an unprecedented moral triumph, acknowledged at international level: as a token of his esteem Napoleon III gave the Count a sumptuous vase in Sèvres porcelain, still to be found inside Santena Castle; Vittorio Emanuele II was no less impressed and conferred on his prime minister on 29 April 1856 the collar of the Santissima Annunziata, one of the most prestigious honours in Europe.
By then Cavour had risen to offer a concrete alternative in the context of national patriotism: as the democratic ideal succumbed yet again with the massacre of Pisacane and his 300 rioters in Sapri, the moderate idea gained more credit with the support of the National Italian Society: a group of former republicans, legalized in Piedmont, who had become supportive of the Savoy and who, thanks to secret funding from Cavour’s government, managed to organize a clandestine network all over the country in order to lay the ground through printed propaganda. One of the organization’s leaders, Sicilian exile Giuseppe La Farina, became one of Cavour’s contacts. But the extraordinary diplomatic success wasn’t matched by the consolidation of internal politics. Cavour decided to put the government’s strength to the test and dissolved parliament. The elections held in November 1857 were a disaster: although the liberals held their ground, the extremist wings, especially the clerical one, gained seats. It was the end of the right-left alliance. Home affairs minister Rattazzi was considered responsible for the defeat and forced to resign. So while internal politics in the kingdom gave out one kind of signal, foreign policy gave out another. One stagnated, the other gained momentum. Relations between Turin and Vienna were at a historical low: the Austrian government was not happy with the Piedmontese press promoting an international appeal to provide the border town of Alessandria with one hundred cannons; as it was irritated when it discovered that the ministry headed by Cavour had accepted an offer by the people of Milan for a monument dedicated to the Sardinian army’s ensign, hope of liberation, to be erected in central piazza Castello.
But it was Felice Orsini who hastened fate by throwing spherical, mercury fulminate bombs against Napoleone III. The emperor got off his carriage unscathed, not so the democratic idea. To convince Bonaparte that the moderate idea was good and unique, Cavour’s diplomatic efforts intensified during the first months of 1858, helped by confidential meetings between the Count’s and Napoleon’s emissaries, Costantino Nigra, special secretary of the Sardinian prime minister destined for a shining career, and imperial physician Dr. Henri Conneau, respectively. Napoleon decided to stop sitting on the fence: direct intervention in Italy was needed as soon as possible to crush revolutionary hotbeds once and for all. An agreement between Cavour and Napoleon was reached in great secret. The two men met incognito at the renowned thermal facility of Plombières.
Thus on 21 July 1858, during a three-and-a-half-hour excursion up and down the valleys and forests «which make the Vosges one of France’s most charming areas», while the emperor himself conducted an elegant two-seat carriage pulled by American horses, the foundations were laid for a military alliance aimed at subverting the geopolitical order of the Italian peninsula. There was no talk of unification yet, just of an independent Italian confederation. Once the Austrians were gone, the north would be ruled by the Savoy with a kingdom of Upper Italy made up of Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna; in the centre a kingdom ruled by the duchess of Parma, much appreciated by the emperor, including Tuscany and the Papal provinces; in the South the Bourbons would be replaced by the descendants of Joachim Murat, Napoleon I’s brother in law, king of Naples between 1806 and 1815. The Pope would be made president of the confederation as compensation for the lands he had lost, and would watch over the nation’s fate from Rome. Cavour knew that the new organization of Italy, heavily dependent on French protection, had a price, and this was set directly by Napoleon: the county of Nice and the duchy of Savoy would return to France, and the Kingdom of Sardinia would move its borders to the natural boundary set by the Alps. But that was not enough. Blood would seal the alliance: a nice wedding was ideal to further strengthen the bond between the two houses. So Vittorio Emanuele II’s first born, 15-year-old pious Clotilde, would be married to the emperor’s reckless cousin, 36-year-old Jérôme Bonaparte. Cavour immediately set out to convince the king to accept the conditions and persuade the princess to sacrifice herself in the name of state interest. If the King hesitated, leaving his daughter freedom of conscience, to Cavour no obstacle on his path could not be overcome. To those who were repulsed by that forced marriage he said in clear terms: «If the King is weak, I am as hard as stone, and to reach the holy purpose we have set ourselves I would be ready to face much worse than a girl’s hatred and the wrath of courtiers». Cavour feverishly conducted negotiations for months. Then finally on 30 January 1859, after the royal wedding, the defensive alliance treaty was signed: France would go to war with Piedmont only if Austria launched an ultimatum; it would send an army of 200,000 men to join a PIedmontese contingent of 100,000 soldiers; the emperor would be commander in chief; all war expenses would be met by the Kingdom of Sardinia; when the Kingdom of Upper Italy had been established, Nice and Savoy would become French. In the meantime international tension had increased to lead Austria into making a faux pas. During the New Year’s reception of 1859 Napoleone III provoked the Austrian ambassador complaining that relations between the two courts were not as cordial as in the past; Vittorio Emanuele II contributed with a speech prepared by the Count held at parliament’s opening on 10 January which included a significant correction by the emperor: the famous sentence of the “cry of pain”, lifted in many parts of Italy which did not leave Piedmont indifferent. Cavour confessed to Nigra that the emperor’s variation appeared to be «one hundred times stronger» than any other expression: «Truthfully I do not yet know how I will come out of it. You will make them notice […] that the hint to cries of pain will produce a huge effect».