Vanished Kingdoms

by Norman Davies

  Over the next two years Italian politics evolved rapidly, and all the while the agreement of Plombières was kept conveniently secret. In June 1859 the French army marched ‘to free Italy’ from its oppressors – the Austrian imperialists, the pope and other ‘reactionary’ rulers. At Magenta, San Martino and Solferino it won decisive but particularly bloody victories against the Austrians. (The terrible suffering of the soldiery at Solferino prompted the creation of the Red Cross.) The Sardinian army, assisted by Garibaldi’s volunteers, the Cacciatori d’Italia, had played a supporting role. The Austrians, despairing, agreed to withdraw from Lombardy. As they left Milan, the ‘Sardinians’ marched in. The House of Savoy was preparing to form its third kingdom, just as Cavour had planned.

  Yet several things did not go to plan. Shortly after Solferino, Napoleon III made a separate peace with Austria at Villafranca di Verona, failing to consult Cavour and sorely displeasing his Italian clients. He was said to be traumatized by the appalling battlefield bloodshed, and appeared to be abandoning the scheme for an expanded Sardinian kingdom in favour of a French-protected Italian confederation. Cavour resigned in disgust, and for six months the path towards a mutually agreed solution became severely fogbound.

  In the second half of 1859 developments in north-central Italy came to the fore. Having lost the protection of their Austrian allies, the dukes of Parma and Modena and the grand duke of Tuscany were all overthrown by local revolutions. In Florence, Grand Duke Leopold II, who had rescinded Tuscany’s constitution in the way that Vittorio Emanuele had not done, was forced to abdicate. Papal administrators were driven out of the Romagna, the northernmost section of the Papal States. All the liberated territories then joined forces in a pro-Sardinian grouping called the United Provinces of Central Italy. They elected one Sardinian governor, only to find that Vittorio Emanuele insisted on appointing a different one. Confusion reigned. Napoleon III in particular had lost his way.

  At this juncture, Cavour realized that an opportunity for diplomatic action had reopened. Returning to office in January 1860, he determined to mend fences with the French and to resuscitate the Plombières agreement. Essentially, if Paris were prepared to approve a series of plebiscites in the United Provinces of Central Italy with a view to their incorporation by Sardinia, Turin would agree to hold parallel plebiscites in Nice and Savoy with a view to their cession to France. These terms were drawn up and signed in Turin at the Franco-Sardinian Treaty of 24 March 1860.43

  The difference between a referendum and a plebiscite is a fine one. Both pertain to collective decisions made by the direct vote of all qualified adults. The referendum, which derives from Swiss practice, involves an issue that is provisionally determined in advance, but that is then ‘referred’ for a final decision by the whole electorate. This would have suited the circumstances envisaged by the Treaty of Turin, but ‘plebiscite’ was the term that the treaty used.

  Plebiscites were common in nineteenth-century Europe, especially in France. The scitum plebis or ‘people’s choice’ had its roots in ancient Rome and was revived during the French Revolution, when popular support was sought for successive constitutions. Louis-Napoleon’s coup d’état was approved by plebiscite in 1851, as was the restoration of the French Empire in 1852. The plebiscites in Nice and Savoy were to form part of a series starting in Parma, Modena, Tuscany and Romagna. Plebiscites are often criticized for being open to manipulation. The wording, the timing, the local circumstances and the degree of impartial supervision can all affect the outcome. In 1860 in Nice and Savoy, none of the basic safeguards were in place. The plebiscites were staged for the purpose of obtaining a preconceived result; Napoleon III aimed to keep procedures under close French control; the press was subjected to censorship; and the ‘Sardinian’ government obligingly resigned all responsibility.

  The inhabitants of Savoy were told nothing of what was being prepared until some astonishing posters, dated 10 March 1860, were put up in all the main localities. In Chambéry, Governor Orso Serra announced the referendum and appealed for calm: ‘HABITANTS DE LA PROVINCE DE CHAMBéRY. Envoyé ici par le Gouvernement du Roi …,’ he began. ‘Sent here by the king’s government in order to strengthen the ancient ties which unite the populations of the monarchy, I could not foresee the events which… are rendering the accomplishment of my mission very difficult.’ He then blamed ‘the events’ on a sourde agitation – literally on ‘deaf’ or ‘thoughtless trouble-making’ – and gave the distinct impression that the government had been forced to organize the referendum against its better judgement. His summary of the king’s attitude was, at best, curious:

  You will be called on to choose between this ancient monarchy of Savoy, to which you are united by the affection of centuries and by limitless devotion, and the Nation, which has so many claims to your sympathy… However keen would be the regret experienced in the king’s heart if the provinces which were the glorious cradle of the monarchy were to decide to separate… he would not refuse to recognise the validity of the peaceful and orderly manifestation [of your will].44

  The terms of the Turin Treaty were then published and ‘Sardinian’ troops were ordered to withdraw from the plebiscite areas. On 1 April 1860 Vittorio Emanuele formally released his Savoyard and Niçois subjects from their oath of allegiance. The voters could hardly have failed to guess that the monarchy intended to abandon them.

  They also knew that the French emperor believed the outcome to be a foregone conclusion. He had ignored a petition sent to him from northern Savoy asking for wider consultations, and on 21 March his words to a delegation of well-known Savoyard Francophiles were made public. ‘I am able without failing in any international duty to testify to you my sympathy,’ he told them. ‘It is neither by conquest nor by insurrection that Savoy and Nice will be united to France, but by her legitimate sovereign supported by popular consent.’45

  In the brief period when debate was permitted, the plebiscite organizers did not reinstate suspended newspapers, such as the Courrier des Alpes, which had been demanding that all options be openly discussed. In theory, the options in Savoy were fivefold. The first was for the status quo to be maintained. The second would see Savoy become an independent state. The third would see Savoy joined to Switzerland. The fourth would allow districts with pro-Swiss, pro-‘Sardinian’ or pro-French sentiments to decide for themselves. The fifth was that the whole of Savoy would be taken by France. In the event, only one question was put: ‘La Savoie, veut-elle être réunie à la France?’ (‘Does Savoy want to be reunited with France?’) The word ‘reunite’ was in itself obviously provocative.46 The voters were only able to choose between ‘Oui’ and ‘Non’.

  In the spring of 1860 the Italian peninsula found itself in almost total turmoil. As yet, no Kingdom of Italy existed. The future of the United Provinces of Central Italy hung in the balance; and, though nationalist ferment was spreading to Sicily, Garibaldi and his ‘Thousand’ were still waiting to sail into the fray there. The autocratic King ‘Bomba’ – Ferdinand II – was still entrenched in Naples, as was the pope in Rome. Despite much criticism, Austria was holding on both to Venice and to the surrounding Terraferma. To hold a plebiscite amid such uncertainty was tantamount to offering a choice, not between France and Italy, but between France and chaos.

  The plebiscite planners were especially worried about pro-Swiss sentiment. Switzerland, unlike France or Italy, was both stable and democratic. The Swiss cantons adjacent to Savoy, having the same Burgundian origins, were French-speaking, and the northern Savoyard districts of Chablais and Faucigny were known to possess a clear, pro-Swiss majority. So the planners added an extra ‘box’ headed ‘oui et Zone’ to the voting paper. This gave voters who accepted annexation to France the extra possibility of supporting a ‘Free Trade Zone’ in the northern districts. There was no extra box marked ‘Non et Zone’, and no opportunity to opt for incorporation into Switzerland. Women (as usual) were excluded.

  April 1860 provided the occasion for po
pular poetry. One of the less gruesome verses was written by a M. Turbil, the inspector of elementary schools in Savoy, who expressed appreciation of the ‘Sardinian’ past along with fervent expectation of the French future:

  Nous l’aimions cependant l’antique dynastie

  Dont nos superbes monts couvrirent le berceau,

  Et le Roi-Chevalier qu’acclame L’Italie,

  Et notre vieille croix, et notre vieux drapeau!

  Aujourd’hui le Piémont, trouvant pour sa couronne

  Un plus riche fleuron, déserte nos firmas…

  O mon charmant pays! Volontiers on pardonne

  Quand la France nous tends les bras!

  (‘We loved the ancient dynasty / whose cradle is surrounded by our sublime peaks, / and the knightly king, whom Italy now acclaims, / and our old Cross and our old flag. / But today, finding a richer emblem for its Crown, / Piedmont is deserting our frosty land… / Oh, my charming country! One freely forgives / when we are offered France’s embrace.’)47

  The plebiscite in Savoy did not take place until voting in Central Italy and in Nice had been completed. Parma, Modena, Tuscany and Romagna, which all voted on 22 March, showed strong majorities for incorporation into Piedmont, thereby creating a setting where the traditional Franco-Italian balance in the Stati Sardi had already been overturned. The County of Nice voted on 15/16 April in an event marked by a low turnout and a high rate of abstentions. Nonetheless, the French were able to claim that 25,743 Niçois had voted ‘Oui’ and only 100 ‘Non’. Presented as a 99.23 per cent victory for France, the result gave the impression of an unstoppable trend. Garibaldi, for one, was furious at the cession of his native town. He voiced his outrage loudly in the subalpine parliament, before returning home to Caprera.

  Voting in Savoy was organized collectively, inhibiting dissent. It started on Sunday, 22 April. Parishioners were led to the voting booths by stewards. Cards marked ‘Oui’ were distributed for men to stick on their hats. An engraving from Chambéry shows voters lined up by profession in front of the Grenette (today the Musée des Beaux-Arts). Doctors and lawyers wore their academic robes. The band of the National Guard was playing cheerful music. French flags waved on all sides. The first group of voters, the customs officers, were brought in at 7 a.m. At nine o’clock it was the turn of the archbishop and his chapter; at 9.30, the farmers from the suburbs. Secret balloting was not practised. Scrutiny of the votes proceeded on the 23rd and the 24th, and the final count for the whole of Savoy was proclaimed on 29 April: Registered voters: 135,449. Votes cast: 130,839. Favourable: 130,523. Against: 235. ‘Oui et Zone’: 47,000. Abstentions: c. 600. Spoiled papers: 71. Majority: 99.76 per cent.48

  In Chambéry itself, the majority of pro-French votes was declared to be only 99.39 per cent. ‘There were no winners and losers today’, an imperial proclamation commented. ‘In the midst of such imposing unanimity, the old hatreds have disappeared.’49 Within a week, Garibaldi sailed with his ‘Thousand’ from Genoa, heading for the conquest of Sicily, and Savoy faded from the forefront of Europe’s attention.

  Ratification of the plebiscite was scheduled for 29 May in the subalpine parliament in Turin, and for early June in the French Senate. The session in Turin proved tumultuous. Only three of the eighteen Savoyard deputies bothered to attend, and Cavour was shouted down. But he had little to fear. The results were safely ratified. French troops held a grand parade in Chambéry in front of the Fontaine des Éléphants.

  Two matters remained: the transfer of powers, and the division of the armed forces. The former was staged in the castle at Chambéry on 14 June 1860. The French emperor’s representative, Senator Laity, arrived to take possession of the territory from the Sardinian commissioner, M. Bianchi. The two men drove to the castle in one carriage. The documents of transfer were signed in the antechamber of the Grand Salon. M. Bianchi then left by the back door, as Senator Laity proceeded to announce that annexation was complete. The archbishop made a short speech: ‘For eight centuries,’ he said, ‘the clergy of Savoy always maintained a sense of loyalty and of perfect submission to the royal family to whom Providence had assigned our destiny… Subject now to a new sovereign, we shall grant him the same respect, obedience and loyalty.’ The senator responded gracefully. At 12.15 p.m. the French flag was raised, and cannon roared out a salute.50 At the time of the plebiscite, 6,350 Savoyards were serving in the Sardinian army; 6,033 had voted ‘Oui’ and 282 ‘Non’. The officers were now given a free choice either of staying in the Sardinian service, or of resigning their commissions. Most of them stayed. But the ‘Brigade de Savoie’ was disbanded:

  When Victor Emmanuel presided [in Turin] over the last parade of the Brigade of Savoy, before sending the soldiers home over the Alps, which had now become a state frontier, it is said that the troops and the sovereign were both deeply moved… The ancient alliance between the Savoyard soldiers and the House of Savoy was coming to an end amid the ritual and fanfares of a military review; and eight centuries of history were reaching their term. One of the oldest and most stable monarchies in Europe was dying… There was much… to impress every man of honour, even the most passionate democrat.51

  When it was all over, the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugénie paid their first official visit to Savoy between 27 August and 5 September. The celebrations were extravagant. The streets were hung with bunting and with loyal placards. Parades, receptions, balls, banquets, concerts and theatre visits followed in dizzy succession, and the emperor graciously ate a meal of chamois aux épinards. The empress graciously waved to every shout of the crowd. A memorable gas-lit tableau was erected on the station platform at Chambéry showing an imperial eagle, with a wing-span of 30 feet, clutching in its talons a board bearing the figure 141,893 – supposedly the total tally of votes cast for France.52

  No one knew what the results of the plebiscite might have been if all options had been offered. Britain and Switzerland protested in vain. France and ‘Sardinia’ insisted that they had fulfilled their obligations, and that the result had been lawfully ratified; a Free Trade Zone was in place along France’s new border with Switzerland. The king and Count Cavour had more pressing matters to worry about. The fait was accompli. Yet the divorce between Savoy and Piedmont can only be seen as a historic rupture. It ended a union that had been in place since 1416, and it rode roughshod over a number of democratic choices. It also separated the ruling house from its ancestral land, cutting them adrift like a boat without moorings, a flimsy vessel tossed like a bottle onto the stormy seas of Italian politics.

  The Kingdom of Italy did not materialize until the year following the transfer of Nice and Savoy. Garibaldi’s expedition to Sicily, and subsequently to Naples, proved a decisive catalyst, and for several weeks in the late summer of 1860, the prospect loomed that the ‘Sardinian’ monarchists would be sidelined. However, neither Cavour nor Napoleon III was prepared to contemplate failure. On 11 September, the Sardinian army marched south to take control of all the Papal States and to keep Garibaldi’s republicans out of Rome. The race was on. ‘If we do not reach the Volturno before Garibaldi reaches La Cattolica,’ Cavour said, ‘the monarchy is lost, and Italy will remain in the prison-house of the revolution.’53

  Garibaldi lost the race. Marching up from the south, he never reached Rome and had to settle for a triumphal entry into Naples in the company of Vittorio Emanuele II. Then, having been refused the Neapolitan viceroyalty for life, he retired in pique. The king of Sardinia was left in command of the whole country. The last major obstacle had fallen. The House of Savoy was indeed entering its third kingdom.

  Arrangements were finalized in the winter of 1860/61. An all-Italian parliament was summoned to Turin and voted decisively for the creation of a national Kingdom of Italy, of which Vittorio Emanuele was to be the first monarch. The proclamation was made in February 1861 and the coronation staged on 17 March. Count Cavour officially became Italian prime minister, but he was also mortally exhausted, and died of a stroke within month
s. His last words, as reported, were ‘Italy is made. All is safe.’54 Napoleon III was aghast at the news. ‘The driver has fallen from the box,’ he remarked, ‘we must see if the horses will bolt.’55

  After four years, the kingdom’s capital was moved from Turin to Florence. In 1866, following the Austro-Prussian War, Venice was incorporated into Italy. Finally in 1870, Rome fell; and the Papal States were abolished. The pope lost all temporal power. Vittorio Emanuele took up residence in the former papal palace on the Quirinale. When he died in 1878, victorious and revered, the foundation stone of the Vittoriano was laid in his honour.

  During the next sixty-eight years three monarchs reigned in Italy: Vittorio Emanuele II’s son Umberto I (r. 1878–1900), Vittorio Emanuele III (r. 1900–46) and Umberto II (r. 1946). None of their reigns was terminated by natural causes. Umberto I, who had fought at Solferino, had been christened with the name of the dynasty’s founder, and changed his regnal number from IV to I. By contemporary standards, he was not the most oppressive of monarchs, and was dubbed Il Buono. Nonetheless he did little to calm a wave of violent bread riots that broke out in the late 1890s, and he made himself unpopular by rewarding the general, Bava-Beccaria, who had violently suppressed rioters in Milan. Like his maternal Habsburg relatives, he became the target for nihilist assassins. In July 1900, at Monza, he was shot dead.