UNION
The fall of Napoleon led to the Treaty of Vienna of 1815 r.. under which the Austrians restored the former ruling classes to power. The Austrian Chancellor Metternich did his best. to divide the nation and weaken unification aspirations, and yet years 1820-1849 they were a revolutionary period. The uprisings began in Sicily. Naples and Piedmont, when King Ferdinand took action, which limited personal freedom and led to the ruin of many farmers. The insurgent army quickly gained popular support in Sicily and forced a few concessions., but the Austrian troops called for help by Ferdinand suppressed the revolution. In the north, the onerous laws introduced by Victor Emmanuel I in the Kingdom of Piedmont sparked student protests and military revolts in Turin.. Victor Emmanuel abdicated in favor of his brother Charles Felix and his son Charles Albert; the latter initially gave some support to the radicals., to which Charles Felix called the Austrians, and thousands of revolutionaries were condemned to exile. Charles Albert became King of Piedmont in 1831 r. He was an undoubted bigot in addition to the insidious, as evidenced by the fact. that after taking over the throne, he betrayed the old radicalism and made an alliance with the Austrians.
W 1831 r. there were further uprisings in Parma, Modena. the ecclesiastical state, in Sicily and Naples. Lack of coordination of insurgents' actions and enthusiasm, with which the Austrian and papal troops intervened contributed to the rapid collapse of the revolution, but despite the failures, the spirit of rebellion spread.
The insurrections had a profound effect on Giuseppe Mazzini. Arrested in 1827 r. as a member of a secret Carbonari organization and imprisoned for three months in 1830 r "formulated his own political ideology and, after his release, founded the group" Young Italy”. Among those fascinated by the ideals of "Young Italy” was Giuseppe Garibaldi, who would soon play the lead role in Risorgimento. as the Reformation-Unification Movement was called.
Unsuccessful harvest in 1846 i 1847 r. became the cause of widespread famine and cholera epidemics. In Sicily, multitudes of peasants marched to the capital, burning files of credit unions, devastating real estate and freeing prisoners. Moderate revolutionaries of the middle and upper classes, concerned about the riots. they formed a government that controlled the uprising, but in 1848 r. the goals of the Sicilian separatists have come true. The fighting spread to Naples, where Ferdinand II made temporary concessions, but a year later he regained Sicily. During the same period, there were serious riots in Tuscany.. Piedmont and the Papal States. Rulers left their principalities, and Charles Albert changed course again after Metternich lost power — he gave his subjects a constitution and declared war on Austria.. In Rome, the Pope fled from the tumult, and Mazzini became the number one figure in the republican triumvirate, who stood at the head of the city in 1849 r. (Garibaldi took up defense).
None of the uprisings lasted long. Twenty thousand revolutionaries were expelled from Rome, after the military defeats inflicted by the Austrians. Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son Victor Emmanuel II and to Tuscany, Modena and Parma returned their princes. The only thing, that survived, former Piedmontese Constitution, which in the sixth decade of the nineteenth century. attracted many refugees to this cosmopolitan state.