The Italian Risorgimento stands to be one of the most fascinating and historically stimulating period in all of European history.
From Northern political intrigue, to a mere 1000 men toppling a 700 year old kingdom to the rise of the liberal and industrious Italian bourgeoisie, the Risorgimento is one of the greatest examples of a successful experiment in nationalism and liberal governance.
I am not saying it was without it's problems, (and truly there were differing levels of success depending where you were on the peninsula) but the unification was such a terribly daunting task which was achieved in a relatively short amount of time.
1st Italian War of Independence >Lose miserably against the Austrians of all people... 2nd Italian war of Independence >Ride Nappy's dick and sell him Savoy and Nice because you can't fight worth shit 3rd Italian war of Independence >Declare war on Austria while they're too busy with Prussia, then act like you did it all by yourself
Italy's pretty cool, though they're a bit shit at unified warfare
Landon Allen
Finally an actually interesting thread ...aaand it's shit Jokes aside, what's your opinion on Mazzini and his contributions to the Risorgimento, however positive or/and negative?
Logan Rogers
I think it's hilarious how the Italians just roll with it and end up on top after each defeat.
Kayden Cook
We're not a "fighting" people, we're a diplomacy people. Everyone will tell you that the italian army, troughout ww2, treated his POW (e.g. british in egypt) relatively good, behaved nicely in occupied territory (e.g. greece), and made for the most pleasant POW (british war camp in egypt again)
Jack Sanders
his ideas were highly radical but they're also instrumental for any study on 19th century Nationalism. Ideas like unification, Europeanism and class collaboration really set him apart from his contemporaries like Marx. But I think his ideas on national spirituality or religion were a bit daft.
Tyler Bell
>unified warfare Dude, Italy's army was basically the cream of piedmontese nepotism leading a bunch of suspected commies and anarchists to the massacre. A bit unfair to call it "unified" warfare. Hell even nowadays the italian army is basically northern officers and southern enlisted.
Ian Lewis
it was mostly the Piedmontese fighting those wars, mate.
Parker Torres
>what's your opinion on Mazzini and his contributions to the Risorgimento, however positive or/and negative? His pointless pushing for a centralized nation was as cancerous as ideology could possibly get. If the risorgimento had been led by the ideas of Ricasoli, Cattaneo, or even Gioberti, modern Italy would have been much better off.
I've been reading Il Gattopardo recently and the transition that the Bourbon Prince goes through when the Italian state takes over Sicily is a remarkably interesting topic.
How Prince Fabrizio sees his world decay around him is presented so well. I'd suggest the film to anyway, too.
Aaron Rodriguez
how did this fat fucking neckbeard managed to unify a country
Justin Gonzalez
Neckbeards are generally pretty good at map painting in EUIV. I'm guessing he just applied those skills to real life.
Owen Gutierrez
Normies can achieve fuck all desu It takes the power of autism to do something like this
Levi Campbell
I still don't get why Italians went with a centralized state similar to France instead of forming a federation like Germany.
Camden Ward
Ouiaboos And Germans also includes Austrians
Jeremiah Moore
The Piedmontese severely underestimated how easy it was to govern the South. They also thought they were ordained by God to rule Italy and this arrogance blinded them.
Liam Torres
The best period for Southern Italy was being ruled by Spain.
Benjamin Morales
>Early modern Italian history and society thread! I don't think you know what early modern means
Brandon Gutierrez
>the best period for Southern Italy
The current Republic has been the only time anything has been done for the South.
Jordan Powell
Because Italy was unified through conquest, and the piedmonteses wanted to stay on top after unification rather than share the power. So a centralized state with the power in the hands of the piedmontese aristocracy was the best option for them.
Andrew Stewart
Arguably fascism too. At the very least they tried to develop all the peninsula rather than just strictly the north west.
Nolan Thomas
Mussolini did do a lot to cripple the Mafia and crime syndicates in southern Italy. It caused a exodus of crime families to America who would later help the allies during the invasion of Sicily.
Hunter Phillips
>Lose miserably against the Austrians of all people
An Italian province loses to an empire.
>Ride Nappy's dick and sell him Savoy and Nice because you can't fight worth shit
Treacherous frog makes their own treaty behind the Italians back that doesn't give them what they want.
>Declare war on Austria while they're too busy with Prussia, then act like you did it all by yourself
Wars are won through political intrigue, the battling is just for show.
Samuel Sanchez
>They also thought they were ordained by God to rule Italy and this arrogance blinded them. Wut? The leaders were a bunch of filthy heathens.
Jace Gonzalez
Well Garibaldi did a lot of it. He owed allegiance to the king of one region of Italy, and conquered large swathes of the peninsula for him. Once he did that it was probably easier for Cavour to convince/coerce other regions to join as well.
Xavier Flores
was there any element of irredentism to the leaders of the reunification?
did they care about including italians in switzerland, corfu, corsica, etc. to their new state?
Gabriel Bennett
He was a fat kissless virgin neckbeard that threatened to kill himself every time things didn't go the way he wanted, how could he NOT unify a country?
Mason Hernandez
Garibaldi wasn't even a nationalist to begin with, let alone an Irredentist Cavour died too early to witness the birth of Irredentism, but he would have probably have exploited it to gain new land or leverage in stronger positions with Italy's allies and rivals, but he wouldn't have angered the Brits by sponsoring it in Malta and Corfu. The King was probably ok with it as long as it allowed him to go on more wars and fuck hot girls
Christian Nelson
Garibaldi never forgave Cavour for giving his hometown Nice to France.
Angel Price
leave the monarchists to me
Juan Gutierrez
this. Italy's political elite was so damn liberal before Fascism. A literal Anglican Jew became prime minister at the beginning of the 20th century
Hudson Martinez
Sonnino was a die hard reactionary monarchist though