negative effects of Italian unification
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This growing sense of nationalism led to the eventual unification. The Italian Unification earned Italy its independence and built its capacity to influence regional politics. Italy as a unified state had the capacity to build its armies to protect its sovereignty
Italian unification has been a matter of a few people, people well educated, coming from the bourgeoisie. And in the final phase, it concerned almost only Northern Italy.
After the Restauration in 1815, there was a secret movement called “carbonari” which started in Naples, whose goal was to obtain a liberal constitution from the King. In the years 1820–1821 there were the Carbonari motions that spread in several places in Italy, but they were suffocated and the participants were sent to jail or executed.
After that failure, one of the main actors of the Italian Unification, Giuseppe Mazzini, created the Giovane Italia (Young Italy): his idea was to make Italy a Republic.
During the motions in 1848 that took place in almost all Europe, when the Reign of Piedmont declared war on Austria and Milan rose up against the Austrian occupants, Mazzini accepted that the liberation of Italy would be led by the monarchy. He had understood that the Italian folks were not mature for his republican project.
Then the Italian unification was (almost) achieved with the army of the Savoy Royal family in the two Independence wars in 1859 and 1866, the first one with the help of Napoleon III of France and the skilful political direction of Camillo Benso conte di Cavour, and the second one with the help of the Prussian army which defeated the Austrians and dictated the peace terms.
Another actor of the unification was Garibaldi that landed in Sicily in 1860 with a thousand volunteers (all from Northern Italy) and defeated the troops of the Borbone, they reached Naples where they joined the Piemontese army coming from the North.
The final act was the taking of Rome in 1870, when France lost her war against Prussia and Germany and could not protect the Pope any longer.
The mass of people did not take part in the wars, with a few exceptions in 1848: the 5 days motions of Milan, that saw a large participation (but when the Austrians came back they were hailed by many Milanese); the people of Venice who fought heroically against the Austrians, the people of Brescia that fought for 10 days against the Austrians, the cities of Bergamo and Como.
But in Rome in 1949, during the period called the Roman Republic, when the republican government made by Mazzini was attacked by the French army, only Garibaldi and his Redshirts fought: the Romans stayed and watched.
Garibaldi in Sicily with his 1000 Redshirts could defeat the Borbone’s army because many Sicilians fought to their side; the Sicilians never liked the Reign and that was their occasion to show it.