Mazzini's Successful Italian Uprisings

Italy has not existed as a country for long--for a while, Italy was a politically divided combination of states. In 1799, Russia and Austria managed to expel France from Italy, but this only lasted until the Italian provinces and city-states were once again conquered by France and fell under the rule of Napoleon. Napoleon established the Kingdom of Italy, but with his downfall came the territorial provisions of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Throughout these decades, the Italian states were greatly fragmented, and Giuseppe Mazzini played a tremendous role in their unification. Mazzini believed that a common uprising would unite the Italian people--a philosophy which was successful for the most part. However, once many Italians established

In 1833, several central members of Young Italy had a revolt planned in Savoy and Piedmont. However, the Sardinian police caught word of this uprising in the city states and proceeded to arrest and execute some members, which temporarily thwarted their progress. A year later, another of Mazzini’s revolts failed in the same place, which then led to a halt in Young Italy’s uprisings for several years. These unsuccessful revolts less to demoralization with Young Italy and loss of prominent leaders. Young Italy had some success in cities such as Tuscany, Piedmont, Sicily, Abruzzi, and Liguria and established branches in Genoa and other cities.

One of Mazzini’s most influential moments was during the 1848-1849 time period, throughout the revolutions of 1848. He had the opportunity to propose his desires for Italian unification and republicanization of Italy. Several motivations driving the revolutions for Italians were people’s disappointment with political authority, their lack of ability to promote their own beliefs through the government and/or the press, and the aims for the political changes proposed by Mazzini--nationalism and

Mazzini was able to share his opinions and thus create a greater drive for Italian unification. National unity within Italy became the main objective for many more Italian liberals. This ideology was similar to the events during the American Revolution--it began as mostly a shared resentment towards Britain but eventually developed into a sense of national unity. In the same way, the reactionary governments that followed Austrian rule were united in their opposition to Austria, but otherwise were disjointed. Italian unification began to seem like a simpler solution to the problems that occurred from defeat in the revolutions of 1848. Some Italian liberals, including Cavour, Ricasoli, and Minghetti, realized that using the differing political interests of Northern Italy could help their country by using them against Austria; Italians could promote their self-sufficient economic development which could be furthered by their separation from Austria. Cavour promoted nationalistic ideals and was able to convert the king of Piedmont, Vittorio Emanuele II, to the nationalist cause.

Italian unification, during the 1860’s, began to seem like less of a revolutionary idea and appeared to be the one realistic way to keep the country together. Once Mazzini’s philosophy became more widely accepted, it gradually lost its vehement advocates and lost much of its