Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour
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The Count of Cavour Victor Emmanuel II | |
---|---|
Prime Minister | Massimo D'Azeglio |
Preceded by | Pietro De Rossi di Santarosa |
Succeeded by | Giuseppe Natoli (1861) |
Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
In office 30 June 1848 – 17 March 1861 | |
Constituency | Turin |
Personal details | |
Born | Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso 10 August 1810 Turin, First French Empire |
Died | 6 June 1861 Turin, Kingdom of Italy | (aged 50)
Nationality | Italian |
Political party | Historical Right |
Signature | |
Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri (Italian pronunciation:
Cavour put forth several economic reforms in his native region of
English historian Denis Mack Smith says Cavour was the most successful parliamentarian in Italian history, but he was not especially democratic. Cavour was often dictatorial, ignored his ministerial colleagues and parliament, and interfered in parliamentary elections. He also practised trasformismo and other policies which were carried over into post-Risorgimento Italy.[2][3]
Biography
Early life
Cavour was born in
Camillo and his older brother Gustavo were initially educated at home. He was sent to the Turin Military Academy when he was only ten years old. In July 1824 he was named a page to
Cavour then lived for a time in Switzerland, with his relatives in Geneva. He then travelled to Paris where he was impressed by parliamentary debates, especially those of François Guizot and Adolphe Thiers, confirming his devotion to a political career. He next went to London, where he was much more disappointed by British politics, and toured the country, visiting Oxford, Liverpool, Birmingham, Chester, Nottingham, and Manchester. A quick tour through the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland (the German part and the Lake Geneva area) eventually landed him back in Turin.
Cavour believed that economic progress had to precede political change, and stressed the advantages of railroad construction in the peninsula.
Early political career
The first apparently liberal moves of Pope Pius IX and the Revolutions of 1848 spawned a new movement of Italian liberalism, allowing Cavour to enter the political arena, no longer in fear of the police. He then gave a speech in front of numerous journalists in favour of a constitution for Piedmont, which was eventually granted. Cavour, unlike several other political thinkers, was not at first offered a position in the new Chamber of Deputies, as he was still a somewhat suspicious character to the nation.[3]
Cavour never planned for the establishment of a united country, and even later during his premiership, his objective was to expand Piedmont with the annexation of Lombardy and Venetia, rather than a unified Italy. For example, during the conservative period, he gained a reputation as a non-revolutionary progressive. He was a poor public speaker. Cavour then lost the next election, while the Piedmontese army was destroyed at the Battle of Novara, leading Charles Albert to abdicate, passing the throne to his son, Victor Emmanuel II.[7]
Cavour was then brought back into Parliament by the voters, where he was much more successful. His knowledge of European markets and modern economics earned him the positions of Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Commerce, and Minister of the Navy in 1850. Cavour soon came to dominate the cabinet of Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Piedmont–Sardinia
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Cavour formed a coalition with Urbano Rattazzi known as the Connubio ("marriage"), uniting the moderate men of the Right and of the Left, and brought about the fall of the d'Azeglio cabinet in November 1852. The King reluctantly accepted Cavour as prime minister, the most conservative possible choice, but their relationship was never an easy one.[9]
Cavour was generally liberal and believed in free trade, freedom of opinion, and secular rule, but he was an enemy of republicans and revolutionaries, whom he feared as disorganized radicals who would upset the social order. Cavour dominated debate in Parliament but is criticized for the controversial methods he used while Prime Minister, including excessive use of emergency powers, employing friends, bribing some newspapers while suppressing others, and rigging elections, though these were fairly common practices for the time. The national debt soared by a factor of six because of his heavy spending on modernizing projects, especially railways, and building up the army and the Royal Sardinian Navy. When he became Prime Minister Piedmont had just suffered a major defeat by Austria, but when he died, Victor Emmanuel II ruled a state five times as large, which dominated Italy and ranked among Europe's great powers.
The allied powers of Britain and France asked Piedmont to enter the Crimean War, partially to encourage Austria to enter, which it would not do unless it was certain that Piedmontese troops were not available to attack Austrian positions in Italy. Cavour, who hoped that the allies would support Piedmont's expansion in Italy, agreed as soon as his colleagues' support would allow and entered the war on 10 January 1855. This was too late to truly distinguish themselves militarily, but the 18,000-man contingent earned Piedmont a position at the Congress of Paris that ended the war.
In January 1858, the Italian
Both France and Piedmont began to prepare for war, but diplomatic support diminished rapidly. Napoleon III quickly soured on the plot, and Britain, Prussia, and Russia proposed an international congress, with one likely goal the disarmament of Piedmont. Piedmont was saved by Austria's sending an ultimatum on 23 April, demanding that Piedmont disarm itself, thus casting Austria as an aggressor. France mobilised and slowly began to enter Italy, but Piedmont needed to defend itself for a short period. Fortunately, rainstorms and Austrian indecision under Ferenc Gyulay gave time for France to arrive in force.
The battles of
Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora succeeded to Cavour's post and insisted on following the treaty terms, even sending a letter to Tuscany asking that they restore their Grand Duke. Bettino Ricasoli, virtual dictator of Tuscany at the time, wrote about this appeal to his brother, saying: "Tell General La Marmora that I have torn his letter into a thousand pieces."[12] France continued direct talks with Piedmont on the destiny of the central Italian states, all of whose provisional governments supported unification with Piedmont but were restrained by the treaty, which called for the restoration of their old rulers.
Cavour had retired to his estate at
Cavour agreed with Napoleon to cede Savoy and Nice to France, in order to annex Tuscany and
Garibaldi was furious that his birthplace, Nice, had been ceded to France, and wished to recapture the city, but a popular insurrection in Palermo on 4 April 1860 diverted him southward. He requested a brigade of Piedmontese to take Sicily, but Cavour refused. So instead, Garibaldi raised a force of a thousand (I Mille) redshirt volunteers. They landed at Marsala in Sicily on 11 May and won the battles of Calatafimi and Milazzo, gaining control of Sicily. Cavour attempted to annex Sicily to Piedmont, but Garibaldi and his comrade Francesco Crispi would not allow it.
Cavour persuaded Victor Emmanuel to write a letter to Garibaldi, requesting that he not invade the mainland; the letter was indeed sent, but the King secretly wished Garibaldi to invade. He wrote another letter asking him to go ahead, but this was apparently never sent.[15] Cavour meanwhile attempted to stir up a liberal revolution in Naples, but the populace was unreceptive. Garibaldi invaded, attempting to reach Naples quickly before Cavour found a way to stop him. On 7 September he entered Naples, at that time the largest city in Italy, and unilaterally declared Victor Emmanuel the King of Italy.[16] Garibaldi was now military dictator of southern Italy and Sicily, and he imposed the Piedmontese constitution but publicly demanded that Cavour be removed, which alienated him slightly from Victor Emmanuel.
Garibaldi was unwilling to stop at this point, and planned an immediate invasion of the Papal States. Cavour feared France in that case would declare war to defend the Pope and successfully stopped Garibaldi from initiating his attack. Garibaldi had been weakened by the Battle of the Volturno, so Cavour quickly invaded the Papal regions of Umbria and Marche. This linked the territories conquered by Piedmont with those taken by Garibaldi. The King met with Garibaldi, who handed over control of southern Italy and Sicily, thus uniting Italy.
The relationship between Cavour and Garibaldi was always fractious: Cavour likened Garibaldi to "a savage" while Garibaldi memorably called Cavour "a low intriguer".[17]
Prime Minister of Italy
In 1861,
Creating Italy was no easy task, but ruling it proved a worse strain on the Prime Minister. In 1861, at the peak of his career, months of long days coupled with insomnia and constant worry took their toll on Cavour. He fell ill, presumably of malaria, and to make matters worse insisted upon being bled. His regular doctor would have refused, but he was not available; so Cavour was bled several times until it was nearly impossible to draw any blood from him. He was buried in Santena, near Turin.
After his death, Italy would gain Venice in 1866 in the course of the Third Italian War of Independence, connected to the Austro-Prussian War. The Capture of Rome completed the unification of Italy (aside from Trentino and Trieste) in 1870.
Legacy
Today, many Italian cities, including Turin, Trieste, Rome, Florence, and Naples, have important streets, squares, piazzas, and metro stations named after Cavour, as well as Mazzini and Garibaldi.
In 1865, the Collegio dei Nobili, the oldest high school in Turin (founded 1568), and among the oldest and most prominent ones in Italy, was renamed the Liceo Ginnasio statale "Camillo Benso di Cavour" (Liceo classico Cavour).[citation needed]
See also
- History of Italy
- Ministers of the Interior of the Kingdom of Sardinia
References
- ^ Camillo Benso, Conte di Cavour (Italian statesman). biography.yourdictionary.com
- ^ Denis Mack Smith, "Cavour and Parliament" Cambridge Historical Journal 13#1 (1957): 37–57
- ^ a b Denis Mack Smith, Cavour (1985).
- ^ a b c Coppa, Frank J., "Cavour, Count Camillo Benso di (1810–1861)", Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions, Ohio University, 1998
- ^ Beales and Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, p. 106.
- ^ Beales & Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, p. 108.
- ISBN 9781317901402.
- ^ Harry Hearder, Cavour (1994) pp. 62–63, 111–12.
- ^ Mack Smith, Cavour, pp. 61–67.
- ^ Norwich, The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean, p. 523.
- ^ Norwich, The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean, p. 524.
- ^ Holt, The Making of Italy: 1815–1870, p. 221.
- ^ Mack Smith, Cavour, pp. 180–83.
- ^ Mack Smith, Cavour, pp. 203, 206.
- ^ Norwich, The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean, p. 530; The letter was allegedly still sealed when found.
- ^ Mack Smith, Cavour, p. 222.
- ISBN 978-0415034685. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
- ^ Holt, The Making of Italy: 1815–1870, p. 266; Beales & Biagini, The Risorgimento and Unification of Italy, p. 154.
- ^ Holt, The Making of Italy: 1815–1870, p. 265.
- ^ Trevor James, "Out and About with Garibaldi." Historian #123 (2014): 42–43.
Further reading
- Beales, Derek & Eugenio Biagini. The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy. Second Edition. London: ISBN 0-582-36958-4
- Braun, Martin. "'Great Expectations': Cavour and Garibaldi: 1859–1959.” History Today (Oct. 1959) 9#10 pp 687–692; historiography
- Dal Lago, Enrico. "Lincoln, Cavour, and National Unification: American Republicanism and Italian Liberal Nationalism in Comparative Perspective." Journal of the Civil War Era 3#1 (2013): 85–113.
- Di Scala, Spencer. Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to the Present. (Boulder, ISBN 0-8133-4176-0
- Hearder, Harry. Cavour (1994) excerpt, a scholarly biography
- Holt, Edgar. The Making of Italy: 1815–1870. New York: Murray Printing Company, 1971.
- Kertzer, David. Prisoner of the Vatican. Boston: ISBN 0-618-22442-4
- Mack Smith, Denis. Cavour. New York:
- Mack Smith, Denis. Italy: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1959.
- Martinengo-Cesaresco, Evelyn, Countess. Cavour, Fratelli Treves, Milano, 1901; Macmillan, London, 1904.
- Murtaugh, Frank M. Cavour and the Economic Modernization of the Kingdom of Sardinia (1991).
- Norwich, John Julius. The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean. New York: ISBN 978-0-385-51023-3
- Thayer, William Roscoe (1911). The Life and Times of Cavour vol 1. old interpretations but useful on details; vol 1 goes to 1859]; volume 2 online covers 1859–62