18.01.

2021

The 3 Most Important Events That Led to the Italian

Unification
A paper written by: Erkan Yücel Topçu – 2282689

The Italian Unification (Risorgimento) is very hard to define without talking about its
context. There were many underlying reasons, developments, events, and surprise factors that
eventually led to Risorgimento. In my paper, I will talk about the 3 most important of them,
and explain why.
The first event is Napoleon Bonaparte invading Italy.
The second is “Five Days of Milan”.
The third is Garibaldi’s expedition.
I have started with Napoleon Bonaparte invading Italian peninsula, because that event
ended the 50 Years of Peace and caused great socio-cultural changes. For example, Italians
didn’t have their identity defined by their nation, but French had it. So when they invaded
Italy, Italians had seen what it’s like to be from a nation, not a city state. Surely,
“campanilismo” still exists in Italy to this very day, but at least Italians now know that they
are Italian. Metternich’s expression of “Italy being only a geographical area” had started to
change with Napoleon. Also, he built railroad networks that connected the cities, which
further helped the Italians to connect.
Another effect of being invaded by French was Italians gained military experience.
There hadn’t been any wars in the previous 50 years, so they were militarily weak and
inexperienced in war. After Napoleon conscripted many of the Italian man, they received a
military training and experience they would have used again soon. Surely, Italy became
unified by other countries doing most of the wars for them; but if the military power I have
been talking about had not been there, Italy could have been invaded by other neighbors,
uprisings could have other endings, etc.
Also, the French introduced the concept of constitutions to the Italians. Surely, the
state of San Marino had a constitution since 1600, but most of the Italians were only ruled by
a monarch. Their implemented constitution was widely disliked in South, but at the end most
of the Italians saw that they could participate in ruling themselves, and they wanted better
constitutions, which led to many important uprisings in the history of Italian Unification.

The second event I will be talking about is the “Five Days of Milan”. It is one of the
1848 revolts that happened in Europe and Italy. The incident took place in Milan, and earlier
that year, the Milanese people participated in The Tobacco Boycott, since Austrians were
taxing them too much for tobacco products and lottery. During the boycott, soldiers of
Radetzky and local people clashed. After Radetzky’s orders civilians were killed by these
soldiers, and interestingly, some of these soldiers were Italian as well. After these protests
were suppressed, a revolt broke in Vienna in March 1848 which resulted with the fall of
Metternich. When they heard the news, the Milanese revolted again in March 18. This was a
major event in the First Italian War of Independence, and it was supported by popular figures
 18.01.2021

(Victor Emmanuel II, Pius IX, Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Cattaneo). And almost the whole
Milanese population supported this cause, and since it was against a foreign power, this could
be one of the first time in the history of Italian unification where Italians actively fought
against foreign rulers to be independent, and it was the most significant one. The Austrians
fled Milan after this event, and Milanese rulers controlled the city for a while.

The last development I will mention is Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand. He

was a very experienced general, but he was old and “retired”, until a revolt broke in Palermo,
in 1860. He took this opportunity, and quickly gathered his volunteers, around a thousand
men, and attacked the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, which had a greater regular army. The battle
was a success, and after this event, Kingdom of Italy was created.
According to Martin Clark, If Garibaldi had not decided to start this risky war, the
Piedmontese had no intention of starting a war that they might had lost, nor they saw a profit
in unifying Italy. It was only Garibaldi’s decision that unified Italy[1]. After Garibaldi
conquered Sicily and started to march north in mainland, the Piedmontese began actively
supporting the war. And after the Kingdom of Two Sicilies were conquered, the territories of
papal states were also taken by Kingdom of Sardinia. And after some years, Venice and Rome
were also got included in the Kingdom of Italy. If Garibaldi had not started his expedition, the
situation could be different today.
Erkan Yücel TOPÇU
2282689

References:

Clark, M. (2009). The Italian Risorgimento (2nd ed., p. 82). Edinburgh, Great Britain.