Introduction
Narrating the revolutions of 1848–9 has often amounted to drawing the portrait of a historical Janus characterised by two faces: the national and the European.Footnote 1 As Reinhart Koselleck (Reference Koselleck and Körner2004, 219) has described it, while ‘every single one of the riots, upheavals, civil wars and constitutional reforms played their specific role in the context of the countries in which they occurred […] they did so all at the same time, in parallel fashion and in reaction to one another’. This peculiar aspect of the revolution has always been at the centre of the historiographical debate. Many historians have considered this coexistence as necessarily antithetical, teleologically emphasising the relevance of one dimension over the other. Socialist historians tended to underscore the international dimension of the 1848 revolutions (Bouvier Reference Bouvier, Dowe, Haupt, Langewiesche and Sperber2001), while most historical accounts have instead focused on the national perspective. This latter tendency, alongside the ‘nationalised commemorations’ of the revolution, has caused 1848 to become ‘an event of national rather than European history’ (Körner Reference Koselleck and Körner2004, 6).
Recently, historians have attempted to surpass this oppositional understanding, arguing how the 1848 revolutions were both European and national at the same time (Breuilly Reference Breuilly and Körner2004; Judson Reference Judson2016). These studies sought to highlight how, in the minds of most revolutionaries, nationalism and internationalism were often not necessarily seen as colliding with each other (Körner Reference Koselleck and Körner2004). More often, the successes of revolutions driven by ‘national interests’– whether these consisted in achieving constitutional rights, autonomy, or independence – were instead seen as crucial foundations for the construction of a ‘Europe of the people’, as opposed to the old ‘Europe of the kings’. For many revolutionaries – republican democrats such as Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) or Arnold Ruge in primis (1802–80) – ‘the attainment of independence by new nations represented a step towards the universal emancipation of the people’ (Isabella Reference Isabella2009, 98; Urbinati Reference Urbinati, Bayly and Biagini2008) rather than a negation of cosmopolitan or European goals. This meant that the national revolutions were often seen as pieces of a broader European puzzle, where the success of the single parts also meant triumph for the European revolution. At a specific point, however, as John Breuilly has argued (2004), these ideological connections between the various revolutions decreased. Why did this happen?
Emblematic in this regard is the statement of German historian Veit Valentin that 1848 was the point when many began to conceive nationalism and internationalism as two opposing poles (quoted in Körner Reference Koselleck and Körner2004). Once the euphoric atmosphere of March had passed, new interrogatives arose on the fundamental connubium between European and national aspirations of the revolution, with more and more people becoming aware of elements of friction between the various revolutions. While events in February and March seemed almost guided by a master script written by Destiny (Breuilly Reference Breuilly and Körner2004), from April onwards the revolutions ‘entered unknown territory and in so doing demanded more attention and energy’ (Breuilly Reference Breuilly and Körner2004, 35). This led to a progressive distancing of revolutionary fronts ‘as different revolutions became preoccupied with their own special and unanticipated problems’ (Breuilly Reference Breuilly and Körner2004, 45–6). In other words, the parochialisation of the revolutionary struggle coincided with a reconceptualisation of the interplay between national and European aspirations of the revolution.
Clearly, this process was neither homogenous nor immediate. Cosmopolitan patriotism did not suddenly vanish during or after the revolution. However, the experience of 1848 contributed to delivering a significant blow to the hopes of those who considered the goals of the various national emancipations as naturally linked and compatible. This was not only caused by the failure of the revolution, as is commonly believed, but also by specific events that took place during the revolution and that showed a clear divergence between the objectives of the various national fronts. These episodes act as evidence that the collaboration between the various revolutions would not have been as obvious and natural to achieve as many believed. Clearly, these episodes did not constitute the only reason behind the fragmentation of revolutionary activities. However, their disillusioning impact should not be underestimated. Examples of such ‘episodes of friction’ on which historians have written extensively are the controversy over the fate of Poland or the crisis in Schleswig-Holstein (Carr Reference Carr1963; Namier Reference Namier1971; Schultz Hansen Reference Schultz Hansen and Lange1996).
This essay seeks to examine one of these episodes, which has been under the radar of historiography. Its protagonists were the Provisional Government of Milan and the Frankfurt National Assembly – and its legal predecessor, the Committee of Fifty – between April and July 1848. Ignited by the rejection by the latter of a proclamation of friendship sent by the former, this episode caused great scandal in Italy. In fact, it highlighted a clear collision between the goals of the two revolutions, which until then had usually been depicted as intertwined and compatible. In the unfolding of this controversy, we can also read a clash between two radically different ideas of national agglomeration, being products of two different socio-cultural and geopolitical scenarios. In this sense, such an episode provides a powerful depiction of the differences between two national unification processes usually considered as two sides of the same coin (Wandruszka Reference Wandruszka1970; Breuilly Reference Breuilly1982; Cassese Reference Cassese2019).
The absence of commentary on this episode also reflects a general scarcity of studies on the revolutionary experience of Milan in 1848 from a European and transnational perspective.Footnote 2 This is a symptom not only of a broader ‘collective suppression’ of 1848 in Italian memory (Soldani Reference Soldani and Körner2004), but also of a general lack of contributions on the transnational sphere of the Risorgimento (Janz and Riall Reference Janz and Riall2014). Consequently, the Milanese revolutionary experience and its relations with the other ‘sister revolutions’ in Italy and Europe remain to this day severely understudied. Building on the pioneering research of transnational scholars such as Maurizio Isabella, Konstantina Zanou, and Ferdinand Göhde (Isabella Reference Isabella2009; Isabella and Zanou Reference Isabella, Zanou and .2016; Zanou Reference Zanou2018; Göhde Reference Göhde2009), this article focuses on a specific cross-border interaction in 1848. It aims also to encourage transnational research on the Italian and German national unifications, which, as Oliver Janz and Lucy Riall (Reference Janz and Riall2014, 3) have stated, ‘cries out for analysis by a transnational historian.’
The article begins by providing a broad overview of the five days’ revolt and the first political initiatives undertaken by the Provisional Government of Milan. This is followed by an analysis of the proclamation of friendship and the reasons behind its rejection in Frankfurt; then by an investigation of the reactions this rejection caused in Italy and how it influenced the way the German revolution was seen among Italian audiences. A paragraph with final observations concludes the article.
The Provisional Government's initiatives
The Milanese revolution began on 18 March. Tensions were already high in the city when the news of the riots in Palermo (12 January) and of the constitutional concessions by other Italian monarchs arrived (Schönhals Reference Schönhals1852). The decisive spark came some weeks later with the news of the increasing success revolutionaries were experiencing all over Europe. In less than three weeks, in fact, parallel political tumults broke out in Paris (22–24 February), Budapest (15 March), and Berlin (15 March). The republican-federalist intellectual Carlo Cattaneo (1801–69) described how in those days ‘the news increasingly excited the crowds. Fake and real news, blended together, increased the fever’ (Cattaneo Reference Cattaneo1849, 26). When news of the revolution in Vienna broke (Judson Reference Judson2016), riots broke out in the streets of Milan against the Austrian garrison commanded by Josef Radetzky (1766–1858). This displeased reformists like Cattaneo, who would have preferred the peaceful obtainment of concessions from the Austrian government (Cattaneo Reference Cattaneo1849). The mayor of Milan, the conservative Count Gabrio Casati (1798–1873) and the municipal authorities, mostly members of the Lombard aristocracy, also had reason to worry about the current situation. On one hand, they feared Radetzky's repression and the prospect of protracted urban fighting. On the other, they were terrorised by the possibility that republican elements could gain control of the city. Perhaps the ghosts of the French revolution were still vivid in the minds of the Milanese ruling class. In the end, however, both Cattaneo and Casati opted to side with the revolutionaries. On 20 April, Cattaneo founded the Consiglio di Guerra, the War Council, which acted for the remaining 48 hours of the five days’ revolt as the central body directing the armed struggle of the revolutionaries. Casati's support came two days later. On 22 March, Casati and the aristocrats established themselves as the Provisional Government of Milan, under whose authority Cattaneo set up the War Council (Cattaneo Reference Cattaneo1849, 64–6). The latter was renamed Comitato di Guerra (War Committee) and was now presided over by Count Pompeo Litta (1781–1852), a member of the Provisional Government.
It was immediately clear that Casati and Cattaneo had different ideas on how to conduct the war. The Provisional Government was keen on collaborating with the Piedmontese forces, which had declared war on the Austrians on 23 March and entered Lombardy three days later (Laven Reference Laven, Baycroft and Hewitson2006). Cattaneo and the War Committee had instead been actively encouraging the recruitment of volunteers for an action against the Austrian flank in Tyrol. Commanded by the ex-Mazzinian revolutionary Michele Napoleone Allemandi (1807–58), the volunteers were to penetrate in South Tyrol through the Giudicarie Valley, conquer Trento, and incite popular uprisings in the region. If well conducted, such an action could have interrupted the main line of communication between Radetzky and Vienna (Schönhals Reference Schönhals1852, 191). The prospects for such an action looked favourable, as an insurrection had taken place in Trento between 19 and 20 March (Schönhals, Reference Schönhals1852, 188). The leaders of the revolt, Prospero Marchetti (1820–84) and Alfonso Ciolli (1805–95), were also actively requesting concrete support from the Milanese government (Nardon Reference Nardon2007).
However, this initiative was greeted with mixed feelings by Piedmontese generals, who feared its predominantly republican leadership. Providing weapons and support to an expedition commanded by outspoken republicans such as Luciano Manara (1825–49) and Antonio Arcioni (1811–59) could have represented, for the Piedmontese, a double-edged sword. Cattaneo's sudden resignation from the War Committee – caused also by the deteriorating disagreement with Casati – left the decision on the expedition in the hands of Turin and the Provisional Government (Cattaneo Reference Cattaneo1849). Unable to demobilise the thousands of volunteers without fearing general discontent, Piedmontese generals gave the green light to the invasion of South Tyrol. However, they did so reluctantly (Cattaneo Reference Cattaneo1849, 189), not providing the expedition with adequate supplies or armaments. Many contemporary Italian and Austrian commentators agreed that Charles Albert, king of Sardinia (1798–1849), considered this enterprise as a way to divert potentially dangerous Republican elements from the epicentre of the war ‘so that the common folk would not hinder the king's campaign’ (Cattaneo Reference Cattaneo1849, 103; Schönhals, Reference Schönhals1852; Trivulzio Belgioioso Reference Trivulzio Belgioioso1849). The lack of consideration Piedmontese generals gave to Allemandi's expedition in South Tyrol is also testified by the fact that the expedition is not mentioned once in General Eusebio Bava's reflections on the war (Bava Reference Bava1848). At the same time, this does not mean that the Piedmontese did not cherish ambitions about South Tyrol. Instead, it shows a clear preference towards obtaining it as a prize of war rather than as a gift from a republican initiative.
Without adequate armaments or support (Odorici Reference Odorici1865), the ambitious expedition, which took place between 8–27 April, resulted in total disaster. The volunteers were easily driven back by the Austrians before even reaching Trento. The short-lived provisional government set up by the volunteers in the city of Tione – 20km west of Trento – was also among the victims of the defeat. Its members managed to escape to Brescia. Here, on 1 May they created the Associazione Trentina, whose main goal was to promote the independence of the Italian Tyrol – here referred to as Trentino – from the ‘dark and tyrannical Austrian government’ (Nardon Reference Nardon2007).
The initial hope that German Tyrolese would join the rebellion against the Austrians did not materialise. Incited by Radetzky to defend the German fatherland against the Italian invader, they were decidedly hostile to the Italian irregulars. In his memoirs of the war, Austrian Lieutenant General Karl von Schönhals triumphantly remembered how the Tyrolese had resisted the foreigner with the same courage Andreas Hofer had showed against the Napoleonic army 40 years earlier (Schönhals Reference Schönhals1852, 190). Loyalty towards the Habsburg Empire was also prevalent in the more predominantly ‘Italian’ cities in South Tyrol. In this regard, Alfonso Ciolli stated in a letter of 5 April that he had to leave Rovereto – just a few kilometres away from the southern border of the Tyrol – because ‘things were looking bad: the old domination has left profound roots there, and those cannot be moved by gentle means alone’ (Nardon Reference Nardon2007). Similar manifestations of loyalty to the Empire from Italian-speaking groups also took place in Istria and Trieste/Trst (Judson Reference Judson2016, 171).
The proclamation of friendship to the German nation
The day before the invasion of Tyrol, on 7 April, Il 22 Marzo, the Provisional Government's official gazette, published a proclamation of friendship to the German nation on its front page (Il 22 Marzo 7 April 1848). This same message had been sent to Carl Joseph Anton MittermaierFootnote 3 (1787–1867), president of the Vorparlament in Frankfurt, which at that time acted as the central organ of the German revolution. This proclamation, whose sending had been encouraged by Count Vitaliano Borromeo Arese (1792–1874), was characterised by a strong anti-Austrian tone. It described the two revolutions as intertwined and called upon the Germans to join their ‘Italian brothers’ in fighting their common enemy, the Habsburg monarchy. The multi-ethnic empire, aware of the danger of the emergence of national consciousnesses in Germany and Italy, constituted a shared obstacle to the two unification processes, the proclamation stated.
And the Austrian is an enemy of yours as much as an enemy of ours. The Austrian (the government, not the people) always disappointed and opposed the interests of the German fatherland. Leading a jumble of people different in language, traditions, institutions … [the Austrian] always aimed at nothing else than encouraging fragmentation in every possible way. (Il 22 Marzo 7 April 1848)
Staying true to the principle of self-determination, the Italians would have instead supported the project of a united Germany with great enthusiasm, the proclamation pointed out. It thus urged the Germans to place ‘the sacred principles of hardship and right above ethnical and linguistic ties’ and to ‘shake that hand we are now offering you with a brotherly and friendly spirit’ (Il 22 Marzo 7 April 1848). As a sign of goodwill, the Provisional Government was ready to release German-speaking officers and soldiers of the Austrian army captured during the five days’ revolt.
It is not clear whether the proclamation was meant as a first step towards a concrete transnational entente with German revolutionaries or not. Most likely, the proclamation constituted an attempt at establishing official relations with a fellow revolutionary government through a public declaration of mutual sympathy. This would mirror other attempts made in this direction by the Provisional Government, such as Francesco Arese Lucini's (1805–81) unsuccessful mission to Munich or the messages sent to the revolutionary governments of Prague and Paris (Governo Provvisorio di Lombardia – Carte Casati, files 111, 113). Moreover, the German revolution was followed with special attention and high hopes in Italy. This climate of expectation is evident in a piece from Giuseppe Massari (1821–84), written on 16 March: ‘The German movement carries great relevance for its effects on European civilisation and, most importantly, on the Italian Risorgimento. […] The effects of this German regeneration on Italy can only be immensely useful and fecund’ (Massari Reference Massari1848). Similarly, L'Alba, a republican-oriented newspaper published in Florence, pointed out the shared fate of the Italian and German revolution and the natural convergence of their goals (L'Alba 17 March and 14 April). In this sense, the proclamation was seen as a tool for achieving closer ties with a ‘natural’ ally.
The rather peculiar timing of the proclamation – it was sent the day before the volunteers crossed South Tyrol's border– might also suggest a link to the invasion of Tyrol. Perhaps an indirect goal of this message was to reassure Tyrolese Germans of Italy's good intentions, thus securing local support for the invasion of Tyrol. After all, Italians and Austrians were fighting not only with arms, but also with newspaper columns. Right from the start of the revolution in March, a proper ‘propaganda war’ had been taking place, with each side intent on highlighting the many ‘atrocities’ committed by the enemy. The very first issue of Il 22 Marzo, the official gazette of the Provisional Government of Milan, featured an article titled Atrocità dei Tedeschi, (Atrocities of the Germans), (Il 22 Marzo 26 March 1848), quickly followed by articles of the Austrophile Allgemeine Zeitung, based in Munich, where the many ‘barbarities’ of the Italians were described (Cattaneo Reference Cattaneo1849). Concurrently, Radetzky and the Associazione Trentina were engaged in a similar conflict in Tyrol through proclamations and appeals (Schönhals Reference Schönhals1852). In this sense, the proclamation of friendship to the German nation could also constitute a piece of the mosaic in this propaganda war. After all, its publication on the front page of Il 22 Marzo clearly highlights that the proclamation was meant more as a public statement rather than a confidential document between institutions. Its intended recipient being the German nation rather than the Vorparlament, which is not mentioned once in the message, seems to confirm this hypothesis.
The proclamation to the German nation gained vast resonance in Italy, appearing on the front pages of newspapers such as the Florentine L'Alba and the Turinese La Concordia. Concurrently, Il 22 Marzo reported the enthusiastic reaction of the ‘German residents in Milan’ (Raccolta dei Decreti 1848, 188). These expressed their gratitude for the sentiment of fraternity expressed by the proclamation, ‘confident that [our gratitude] will be a mere precursor of that which our applauding fatherland will be honoured to send in honour of the great deeds and the noble sentiments of the Italians’ (Raccolta dei Decreti 1848, 188). This same optimism towards a favourable reception of the proclamation was also echoed by other Italian newspapers. For them, the convocation of the Vorparlament constituted irrefutable proof that all German-speaking people – including those of the Habsburg Empire – were demanding agglomeration in a unified Großdeutschland. Such a process would inevitably have entailed the disappearance of the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, which Italian revolutionaries saw almost unanimously as the main enemy of the European revolution. As Giuseppe Massari wrote on 16 March: ‘The new Germany and the pompous old system cannot coexist: either the former will fail to rise, or the latter will finally collapse. Between life and death there cannot be, and there shall not be, truce or peace’ (Massari Reference Massari1848).
The idea of the Empire as an artificial construct unfit to survive against the backdrop of a ‘new’ order of European states inspired by the principle of nationality was also bolstered by the many riots that had taken place across the whole Empire, and, more notably, in Vienna. Italian nationalists assumed that these revolutions within the Empire were being driven by the same secessionist goals that animated those in Lombardy and Venetia (Corsini Reference Corsini, Ara and Lill1991). In reality, as Pieter Judson has highlighted, many nationalists within the Habsburg Empire ‘would not have seen a contradiction in building their nation within the political context of an empire’ (Judson Reference Judson2016, 206). Hungarian and Czech patriots such as József Eötvös (1813–71) and František Palacký (1798–1876) saw the national recognition of their ethnic groups as an element of consolidation for the Empire, rather than destruction (Trencsényi and Kopeček Reference Trencsényi and Kopeček2013). Consequently, many revolutionaries within the Empire often nourished a certain degree of aversion against secessionist groups aiming to undermine its territorial integrity (such as the revolutions in Lombardy-Venetia or in South Tyrol). A fundamental dissimilarity existed therefore between the secessionist goals nourished by Italian revolutionaries and the reformist goals of other revolutionary fronts within the Habsburg Empire. Such crucial difference was not yet clear to the Italians during March and April, when, instead, they took almost for the granted that the disappearance of the Empire constituted one of the key shared objectives of the European revolution. No columnist expected therefore that the anti-Austrian tone of the proclamation would create hostility in an assembly composed of fellow revolutionaries.
The proclamation never reached the Vorparlament. This had ceased to exist on 4 April, three days before the proclamation was sent from Milan. While waiting for the convocation of the Nationalversammlung on 18 May, the Vorparlament had entrusted a committee of 50 members (Fünfzigerausschuss) to act as the main revolutionary body ad interim. Crucially, Austria enjoyed more representation in this entity than in the previous Vorparlament, retaining six members out of 50, instead of two members out of 574.Footnote 4 It was precisely to the Fünfzigerausschuss that the proclamation arrived on 19 April, causing predictable indignation among those six Austrian delegates. However, non-Austrian delegates met it with equal outrage (Il 22 Marzo 27 April 1848). The solicitation to break ties with the Austrian government was interpreted as a malicious attack on the integrity of the German fatherland. This impression was reinforced by the ties between the Milanese provisional government and Charles Albert, a foreign king who was in that moment at war with a state of the Confederation. Responding to the proclamation would have therefore placed the Committee in an odd position, many members argued.
The final element that convinced the Committee of the insincerity of the Milanese proclamation was the arrival of news of Allemandi's expedition in South Tyrol. This initiative, conducted in a region with a large German minority, was portrayed as a malicious encroachment on German soil, if not a proper invasion. For many members of the Committee, this constituted the unequivocal proof that the Italians would not be satisfied with liberating ‘their own’ territories but would pursue more ambitious territorial goals. This expansionism would have been directed towards territories that were instead seen as ‘naturally’ German, such as Tyrol or Trieste. Adolf Wiesner (1807–67) roared:
While the Lombards were stunning us with their incense clouds, their bellicose gangs invaded Tyrol. That Milanese proclamation is not worthy of a reply: on the contrary, we should act out our outrage against such duplicity, against such lousy politics. We praise the Tyrolese who will defend the German soil and we tell them: you are with us for the honour, for the freedom of Germany. (L'Alba 2 May 1848)
The proclamation was thus deemed unworthy of response by the committee and unceremoniously shelved.
The hostility showed by the Fünfzigerausschuss caused genuine shock in Italy (Corsini Reference Corsini, Ara and Lill1991). How was it possible that ‘a committee that, devoid of any legal mandate and finding its only legitimacy in self-proclaimed elevated principles, principles of redemption from despotism, of nationality, of peoples, of independence, of brotherhood’ (Il 22 Marzo 30 April 1848), had showed itself more willing to defend the interests of the Habsburg Empire against those of a fellow revolutionary cause? This shock originated from a misunderstanding of the power relations and regional loyalties and rivalries at play in the German confederation. Probably blinded by the initial success of the revolution, the Italian press largely looked at Germany as a ‘second Italy’, assuming that Germans also shared their vision of the Habsburgs as the arch-enemy of the revolution. However, between the two national scenarios existed a fundamental difference. As both Adam Wandruszka (Reference Wandruszka1970) and John Breuilly (Reference Breuilly and Körner2004) have pointed out, in Germany the Habsburgs did not merely represent a foreign invader, but an established and ancient German dynasty. It was, therefore, easier for German revolutionaries to see themselves as closer to Austrian geopolitical interests than to those of the fellow revolutionaries in Italy. Failing to realise this, Il 22 Marzo expressed its bewilderment:
It is not necessary to say that in that patriotic gathering Austrians were also present, and, as such, were eager to cause as much offence and damage to the Lombards as they have always done in the past. What we did not expect was that a committee with a non-Austrian majority, and where everybody professed the great principles of justice and civilisation, lets itself be drawn into a resolve worse than the one of Metternich if he were still in power. This we did not expect. (Il 22 Marzo 30 April 1848)
Among the many hostile words pronounced in Frankfurt, the accusation of trespassing on German territory was the one that created the most outrage. For the Italian press, Allemandi's expedition had operated in the Italian part of the Tyrol. In defence of the legitimacy of the initiative, Il 22 Marzo published an article that constituted a proper statement of intent on the borders of a future Italian state (Il 22 Marzo 4 May 1848). Here, the editorialist, citing verses from Francesco Petrarca (1304–74) and Giovanni Berchet (1783–1851), identified the reach of the Italian Tyrol as far as to the Brenner pass, also claiming as Italian most of the Slovenian provinces of Carniola and Litoral. Since for the press no encroachment had been committed, the protests of the Fünfzigerausschuss about the invasion of Tyrol were considered – conversely – as evidence of the innate chauvinism of the Committee of Fifty. Many argued that the Germans were trying to conceal future expansionist plans behind elevated and edifying words. The similarities of these accusations to those addressed by the Committee of Fifty against the Milanese are in this sense remarkable and invite us to further reflect on the border controversy.
As highlighted by Reinhart Koselleck (Reference Koselleck and Körner2004), most of the boundaries imagined by the various revolutionary fronts in 1848 often came to mutually exclude each other. These borders were designed by combining in a rather ‘flexible’ way the argument of linguistic unity with a multitude of other criteria. Joep Leerssen (Reference Leerssen2013, 13) has argued how, despite the fact that no movement failed to use ‘the argument of linguistic identity as the main trump card among their claims for a place on the European map’, this did not enjoy the status of an exclusive principle for defining boundaries, but also intersected with other criteria in rather peculiar pastiches (Judson Reference Judson2016, 200). This tendency was destined to create multiple frictions with regard to regions where different ethnicities and languages coexisted, such as Tyrol, Schleswig, Posen or Sudetenland (Haupt and Langewiesche Reference Haupt, Langewiesche, Dowe, Haupt and Langewiesche2001; Judson Reference Judson2016). The Italo-German case is a prime example of this phenomenon. In 1848, their borders were usually imagined based on syncretistic and stratified criteria, comprising ethnolinguistic principle, historical teleology, the idea of ‘natural borders’, and purely utilitarian motives. Criteria were also often drawn from the most diverse sources, such as folklore, works of literature, or teleological perspectives on past territorial subdivisions. For example, in Germany, the memory of the historic borders of the Holy Roman Empire constituted an influential factor in the debate on the future borders of Germany. Concurrently, in Italy, many looked at the Alps as the ‘natural borders’ of the peninsula, often voluntarily neglecting the presence of conspicuous non-Italian speaking communities within this perimeter. Against this backdrop, South Tyrol had all the characteristics to be a region regarded as German by Germans and Italian by Italians: it contained both Italian and German-speaking inhabitants; it used to be a part of the Holy Roman Empire; it was within the perimeter of the Alps. The strategic value of South Tyrol was also clear to the two parties, both claiming it for themselves as an indispensable protective bastion.
The reactions to the proclamation's rejection
The rejection of the proclamation constituted a big blow to the image of the Committee of Fifty in Italy. It showed not only that the two revolutions had mutually exclusive territorial goals, but also that many in Frankfurt were casting doubts on the legitimacy of the revolution in Italy. In particular, the sentence ‘you have revolted against Austria, but watch out, all of us stand behind Austria’ (L'Alba 2 May 1848), pronounced by Karl von Stedman (1804–82) from Koblenz, outraged Italian public opinion. Stedman's words referred only to the invasion of Tyrol, and not to the secession of Lombardy-Venetia from Austria, which he supported. Taken out of context, however, they were seen by the Italian press as evidence of the Committee's hostility to the entire revolution in Italy. This led L'Alba (2 May 1848) to hypothesise that the Committee had sold itself to the Habsburgs and to the counter-revolution: consequently, it did not represent Germany's views. With this in mind, Federico Curato has pointed out the marginality of the controversy around the proclamation, which, for him, constituted only an isolated incident and had little to no effect on Italo-German relations in 1848 (Curato Reference Curato1952). However, this interpretation is not entirely convincing. First, it is disproved by the synchronic multitude of outraged editorials from newspapers all over the peninsula, such as L'Alba, Il 22 Marzo, La Concordia, La Gazzetta Veneta, all of them devoting ample room to the discussion on the effects of this rejection on Italo-German relations (Corsini Reference Corsini, Ara and Lill1991). Second, and most importantly, the rejection of the proclamation created in Italy the belief that Germany would immediately and unanimously dissociate itself from the decision of the Committee. It was expected that the rest of Germany would protest against the insolence of ‘a bunch of unworthy representatives’ (L'Italia 2 May 1848).
We hope that Germany, which has recently shown a clear intention to disavow Italian rights for an undefined accusation of trespassing, will become worthy of itself again, refusing to contaminate itself with a filthy mentality that political atheism, defeated but not yet destroyed, is attempting to inculcate in them through deception and shock. (Il 22 Marzo 15 May 1848)
These expectations were to be disappointed, as reactions from Germany were mixed. Some groups spoke out against the behaviour of the Committee, most of them being exponents of the German radical left (Corsini Reference Corsini, Ara and Lill1991). Moreover, the Patriotic Society of Leipzig sent a proclamation to the revolutionaries in Vienna, urging them to recognise the secession of Lombardy-Venetia from Austria – while, at the same time, carefully avoiding expressing themselves on the delicate issue of South Tyrol (L'Alba 17 May 1848). On the other hand, other messages seemed to increasingly suggest that most German and Austrian revolutionaries tacitly or openly approved of the Committee's conduct. In early May a proclamation from ‘the people of Austria’ publicly contested the legitimacy of the revolutions in Venice and Milan, which, for them, hampered the achievements of the revolution in Vienna (Il 22 Marzo 16 May 1848). Then, they invited Lombard and Venetian revolutionaries to return under the authority of the Empire and to choose autonomy over secession. In response to this, counter-proclamations from Italy were sent. Here, open and violent accusations of chauvinism often coexisted with more sober appeals to fraternity (Il 22 Marzo 24 May 1848).
You, whose calls for nationality resonate thunderously on the Rhine, would adopt the opposite doctrine on the banks of the Po? Are there maybe two different types of justice, one of them serving the interests of political convenience? If the Russian, or the more civilised French, had been dominating for years a part of your great German homeland, tell me, could you accept from him, without any ambition, such conditions for freedom? If a foreign ruler freed one of your hands from captivity, would you not use that hand to free the other one? Consequently, is the great Italian nation less entitled to conquer independence than the great German nation? Do you boast a more glorious history than ours? Does the spirit of civilisation owe you more than what it owes us? Feel free to depict the Lombards as part of the Germanic breed, to see the Venetians as unconnected to the great Italian family. Those are nothing but delusions (Il 22 Marzo 16 May 1848).
The absence of a unified condemnation of the Committee's behaviour from Germany hampered the broader image of the German revolution, while the rejection of the proclamation had previously damaged only the image of the Committee itself. These two phenomena were, however, fundamentally linked, the former being a direct consequence of the latter. In this sense, the proclamation and its rejection first revealed elements of friction, whose existence no one could have suspected during the euphoric March days.
The issue of South Tyrol quickly became the prime bone of contention between the two revolutions. Disagreement grew when Frankfurt sent out invitations to elect delegates representing South Tyrol in the upcoming Nationalversammlung. This was a clear message that Frankfurt intended to consider the region as an integral part of the German Confederation, despite the protests from the Associazione Trentina (Nardon Reference Nardon2007) and from Milan.
On 23 May, a delegation composed of Prospero Marchetti, Count Alessandro Porro (1814–79), and Giovanni Morelli (1816–91) reached Frankfurt (La Riforma 30 May 1848). Their task was to win some sympathy for the Italian cause through individual talks with selected delegates of the assembly and to bring the issue of South Tyrol to the attention of the Nationalversammlung (Curato Reference Curato1952). Such a discreet approach represented a clear change of strategy from the more direct one attempted just one month earlier with the proclamation of friendship. As Federico Curato has pointed out, the Provisional Government had realised it was time to send people, not proclamations (Curato Reference Curato1952). Despite this, the disagreement on South Tyrol remained sour. Even Carl Mittermaier, who openly supported the creation of an Italian state, categorically excluded the idea of any concession in South Tyrol in a letter to Gino Capponi (1792–1876) (Carraresi Reference Carraresi1883, 416). Of the same opinion was a proclamation from the Allgemeine Zeitung, reported by L'Alba on 28 May.
We Germans have now something important to do: we have to say openly and firmly to the Italians that in the possessions of the German Confederation we are bound by treaties to support Austria, as we want to maintain German influence in the East and a fleet in the Adriatic Sea. (L'Alba 28 May 1848)
On 20 June, this Italo-German disagreement threatened to escalate when the National Assembly declared that an attack on Trieste or on any port of the Confederation would be interpreted as an act of war on the Confederation itself. Prompted by the recent manoeuvres of the Piedmontese fleet near Trieste, the statement from the Assembly indirectly suggested that an attack on Trento could have triggered an equally hostile response. Commenting on this decision, Friedrich Engels wrote in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung on 22 June:
The German National Assembly could not have acted with greater cowardice than it did by adopting this decision. It does not have the courage openly to sanction the Italian war. It has even less courage to prohibit the Austrian Government from conducting the war. Caught in this embarrassing situation, it passes the decision on Trieste (to top it all by acclamation, so as to still its secret fear by loud cries) which formally neither approves nor disapproves of the war against the Italian revolution but which, nevertheless, approves of it in fact. This decision is an indirect declaration of war on Italy, and because it is an indirect declaration, doubly disgraceful for a nation of 40 million people like the German. The decision of the Frankfurt Assembly will evoke a storm of protest in all Italy. (Marx and Engels Reference Marx and Engels1968, 109)
Porro and the others also realised the threat such a stance could pose not only for Italian aims in South Tyrol, but for the entire campaign in Italy. In response to their requests, the Provisional Government asked Turin to send an official plenipotentiary to Frankfurt. The arrival of Evasio Radice (1794–1855), however, did not change things. Both the Assembly and German public opinion remained adamant on Tyrol remaining under German control (Curato Reference Curato1952).
This difficult situation caused a rapid decline in the already damaged image of the National Assembly in the eyes of Italian revolutionaries. Il 22 Marzo openly admitted the impossibility of reaching a compromise with an Assembly ‘which, corrupted by dynastic interests, has been until now as splendid in its principles as unjust and selfish in its deliberations’ (Il 22 Marzo 10 July 1848). Some days later, Il 22 Marzo (29 July 1848) extended its attacks to the whole German revolution, accusing it of pursuing absolutist and imperialist goals against neighbouring nationalities. The optimistic rhetoric that had characterised Italian revolutionary discourse towards Germany only four months earlier was nowhere to be found here.
After all, we know we are in the right, and we do not care whether you recognise or not the legitimacy of our cause. A people that wants independence does not spare sacrifice in gold or blood. For this price we will achieve it, and we will prove to Germany we were not ignorant nor impudent. (Il 22 Marzo 29 July 1848)
La Voce del Popolo even hypothesised the eventuality of a war between the Confederation and an Italian coalition:
It is not only a duty of ours, but it is also in our best interest for South Tyrol to be Italian. And if the German National Assembly – which still lets Austria maintain its menacing and arrogant presence on the Lombard mountain passes and attempt now an invasion of this unequivocally Italian land and would also deny us the right to repeal it and to get rid of this permanent threat – if for these reasons the German national assembly declare us war … so be it. (La Voce del Popolo 26 July 1848)
These warmongering tones were cut short by the rapidly declining fortunes of the revolution in Italy after the Piedmontese defeat at Custoza (22–27 July), which also put an abrupt end to the attempts to get the National Assembly on the side of the Italian revolution. The attention of the press also shifted to more pressing issues, such as the imminent Austrian counter-offensive, which, on 5 August managed to retake Milan, marking the end of the Provisional Government.
Conclusion
It would be easy to simply dismiss the whole controversy around the proclamation of friendship and South Tyrol as a mere example of ‘greedy Pangermanism’ or ‘Germanic ultra-nationalism’, as some works have described it (Le Relazioni Italo-Tedesche 1970; Salvatorelli Reference Salvatorelli1949; Curato Reference Curato1952). However, it would also constitute an erroneous and simplistic interpretation. This episode should instead be seen as a telling example of the frictions caused by the peculiar compresence of the national and European dimension in the 1848 revolution. It highlighted a stark disagreement between Germans and Italians, whose territorial aims came to exclude each other. Moreover, it revealed fundamental differences in how the revolution itself – its goals, its priorities, as well as its enemies – were conceived by the two national movements. In Italy, the road to unification necessarily passed through a confrontation against the Austrian Empire. In Germany, on the other hand, the debate on the role of the Austrian Empire in the unification process was much more varied and complex. In Italy, the Habsburgs were almost unanimously regarded as foreigners, whereas in Germany they enjoyed a reputation as a renowned German dynasty. This caused a conflict in the minds of many German revolutionaries who, in the context of the war between Charles Albert and Austria, were undecided as to whom they should send their sympathies. On one hand, there was a sister revolutionary cause represented by a foreign king, while on the other there was a German state. It was precisely this that marked the failure of the proclamation of friendship in the context of the Committee of Fifty. The proclamation's violent attack on the Austrian government was interpreted as an attack on a German entity, rather than on an enemy of the revolution. To make matters worse, Allemandi's invasion of the contested South Tyrol – a territory claimed by both nationalities – was seen by the Committee as an encroachment on German soil. Feeling threatened on its southern border, the National Assembly adopted an increasingly hostile attitude towards the Italian revolution and its aims in South Tyrol. Conversely, such behaviour led to a rapid process of deterioration in the popularity of the German revolution in the eyes of the Italian revolutionaries. This process was gradual, but it was kickstarted, both symbolically and concretely, by the proclamation and the lack of response to it from Frankfurt. The relevance of this controversy appears substantial, therefore, in the structure of Italo-German relations in 1848. Far from being considered only a marginal episode, the lack of response from Frankfurt contributed to the frustration of expectation in Italian public opinion and the press, which had become convinced that the ‘real’ Germany would have unanimously backed Italian interests in Lombardy, Venetia, and Tyrol. The difficulties and the tensions experienced in this regard in the following months disappointed these expectations, revealing the existence of fundamentally diverging goals between the two revolutions.
Notes on contributor
Stefano Lissi graduated with a Research Master in History at Utrecht University in 2020, with a thesis on Italian ideas of solidarity between the Italian and German processes of national unification. He will further investigate this topic during his PhD at Utrecht University, which he will start later this year. He is mainly interested in the history of the Risorgimento from a transnational perspective, the history of ideas in the nineteenth century, and the history of emotions.
