I don't know shit about the Risorgimento. Teach me Veeky Forums

The whole italian unification was a huge mistake, and it's kinda debated how the referendum on the annexion of Veneto was actually rigged by the monarchy to force that region, that was previously under the Austro-Hungarian domination, into Italy against its people's will.

Most of the Versailles referendums were rigged to shit. Tyrol was another good example of it.

Yeah, with the difference that most of the Tyrol is still more austrian than italian, and they kept a big deal of indipendence; in other words Tyrol after all managed to get away with a good deal, while the rest of the Veneto was fucked into oblivion both culturally and economically.

The king made the right decisions in order to appear the moderate way into a italian nation. His stateman Cavour was the mind behind it, diplomatically.

I'm from Veneto and the austrian domination wasn't liked by the people and still was a recent thing The referendum may have been rigged but surely the didn't want to be under austrian control.

That doesn't excuse the fact that they were ripped from their rightful nation by rigged polls in the name of "self-determination".

>rightful nation

>ethnic Germans
>in Italy
Yeah, Austria was their rightful nation. They were Austrian. They should live in the Austrian nation-state. That was the whole point of the referendums: to get nations into their rightful nation-state. Instead, polls all over the Central powers were fucking rigged. You saw it in Silesia, Tyrol, Veneto, Transylvania, Dobruja, etc.

Uh, Veneto wasn't Versailles, the region was handed to France in 1866 with the idea that they would vote if they wanted to be Italian or not.

There was one exception; Slesvig-Holstein. The Danish king realized that fucking over Germany would ensure that the Germans came for his nation's asshole, so the referendum (which the entente didn't even want) went smoothly. The German-Danish border was the only one that Hitler never revised despite the occupation.

>David Gilmour
That's the guitarist in pink floyd

>with the idea that they would vote if they wanted to be Italian or not.
They voted. And the vote was rigged.

There was a 99.99% vote in favor of joining Italy.

It was the will of the people. How was it rigged?

What was the alternative?

Was it Italian rule that fucked Veneto over? Asking out of curiosity.

>What was the alternative?
To remain Austrian. France was selected as a neutral broker who could occupy the territory and run the plebiscite.

The argument that is alluding to generally refers to the plebescite being restrictive in terms of who could vote, improper counting of votes, and a largely illiterate rural peasantry that could easily be taken advantage of.

As for fucking Veneto over, it's a richer region that effectively subsidizes the central and southern parts of Italy along with Lombardia and Piedmont. Pretty much everything in the Po river valley, to be honest. Which, historically, was considered Gaul. Gallia Cisalpina, to be exact. Italy only refers to the peninsula proper. There's also the matter of entering WW1 and having parts of Veneto devastated by the Isonzo campaign, a series of twelve battles, and losing parts of Veneto to Yugoslavia following WW2.

>Gallia Cisalpina
Figured I should provide a visual.

For what concerns Veneto it was handed to France (as Lombardy after the second war of indipendence) just because Austria hated Sardinia-Piedmont's/Italy's guts and didn't recognise it as a state.
France than flipped the land to the savoyard kingdom.
Also Veneto wasn't fucked by italian rule, because untill the end of WW2 it wasn't as industrialised as today. Untill the 50's it was pretty much a poor agrarian region.
Also why would they ever should have chose to stay austrian? The former republic of Venice was dissolved just 60 years before.

>losing parts of Veneto to Yugoslavia

A good part of many nations' borders have been completely fucked up in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The whole Africa, most part of the middle east, you name it, and Veneto makes no exception: Istria and Dalmatia were more Venetian than Jugoslavian, and -up to an extent- they still are today. Even the regional splitting inside Italy makes little sense in some cases (Molise isn't a region, Emilia and Romagna shouldn't be under the same flag at all, same as Friuli and Venezia-Giulia, and so on).

>Also Veneto wasn't fucked by italian rule, because untill the end of WW2 it wasn't as industrialised as today. Untill the 50's it was pretty much a poor agrarian region.
Just like the rest of Italy.
>The former republic of Venice was dissolved just 60 years before.
The Serenissima was already dead since long long time when it was dissolved.

>africa
>middle east
>nations
The problem is that most of the groups in these regions experienced nationalism AFTER they were partitioned up. Most of the Arabic subsets, besides possibly the Egyptians, lacked a strong identity other than Arab. Even today, the North African states are in a constant flux between "are we Arabs or are we Berbers?" with varying degrees of Arabization and Berber recognition as national policies. If anything, these situations are more analogous to states like Serbia and Romania in the Victorian era where portions where states began forming larger identities and, with that, irridentist movements.

Also separatists. Can't forget those.

>Just the rest of Italy
Yeah but Veneto in particular went from shit tier (it was called "the south of the north") to industrial and economic beast tier.
Venice republic was politically dead but still indipendent, my point was why should the venetian people prefer the rule of Austria from the italian one or their own indipendence?

Btw regional splitting in Italy is a matter of administration.

>Yeah but Veneto in particular went from shit tier (it was called "the south of the north") to industrial and economic beast tier.
I guess that's what happens when the population is not a cesspit of lazy fucks and is not entirely ridden with corruption.

>my point was why should the venetian people prefer the rule of Austria from the italian one or their own indipendence?
Well, Austria was an empire: it was powerful. Italy was, well, a patchwork of totally different nations with no direction, no economical strenght, made up from scratch by a bunch of frenchmen that took romanticism too much seriously.

>Btw regional splitting in Italy is a matter of administration.
Honestly it's naive to consider it *just* a matter of administration, since it deals with territorial identity, and in Italy there's even too much of it. Maybe where you draw the line between Idaho and Utah and Wyoming is just a matter of administration, but each italian city has enough history and identity that they can't be assigned to one region or the other with just administration in mind.

>Austria was an empire
Not a good reason to stay, in fact half of Austria's subjects wanted indipendence.
Also Venice rebelled against Austria in 1848.
Also we all know what happened to the austro-hungarian empire.

Of course it isn't JUST a matter of administration, but administration is the goal. Also if I'm not wrong in the early day of the italian kingdom regions didn't existed, there were only provinces and communes.

To be fair, everyone rebelled in 1848. It was a case of mass hallucinations about independence and nationhood and crowns from the gutters.

Springtime of Nations was the worst time of nations.

If a group of people is willing to fight for soemthing multiple times and in the end succede, don't they deserve what they "won"?

Ans btw
>To be fair, everyone rebelled in 1848. It was a case of mass hallucinations about independence and nationhood and crowns from the gutters.
I really prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to my interlocutor, but I you start speaking about "mass hallucinations" I might start to think your some kind of Habsburg-boo (if such thing even exists)

Neoreactionaries and illiberal Libertarians seem to have an unwarranted fondness for Austria.

So what to Italians think of Risorgimento?

Italian here.
What I think? I think that being unified was better that being divided.
Could have been the italian nation be organised better? Yes, early day Italy suffered from a lot of troubles.
But in the end we're still here.

Hallucination may've been the wrong word, but you must admit that there's something really weird about revolts all over Europe flaring up within such a short span. It's like there was something in the water.

Personally, I'm in the Austria delenda est camp, but I still recognize that there are worse people to have had govern you.

>something in the water
It's called Napoleon

So, I didn't realize that Napoleon III assumed power in 1852. Somehow I assumed it was closer to 1860.

Perhaps the Bonapartistes are the root of all evil.

C A V O U R
A
V
O
U
R

Lol dude regions were introduced in 1960 and didn't really come into function until ~1980.
Also, as an italian too, gotta say the Risorgimento could have been handled way better (aka without romanticism lens), so as to land us with 2 separate countries, North and South Italy. They really pertain to two different cultures, and to a certain degree, languages too. I mean, if you're from NY and listen to a texan speaking, you may notice the accent, but you perfectly understand what he is saying. In Italy, every region has its own dialect who may come as completely foreign to the average italian, whatever that means.

It was the French troops that spread ideas of the revolution among the common folk

It was the French that deposed the July Monarchy in 1848 that really kicked off the whole Springtime of Nations thing. Czech students got it in their heads that they could do the same to Austria, and had a battle over the city. It happened all over the German states. Hungary revolted, and could have perhaps fought Austria to a stalemate if not for Russian intervention. Mazzini is my favourite person from the time period though, since he was such a fucking insane person.

What does even look muslim about him?

>Was it Italian rule that fucked Veneto over?
No. Austrian rule wrecked venetian economy, then when the italians took over they basically ignored the region completely (economically at any rate, they still tried pretty hard to align the region with mainstream italian culture and language) in favour of the "loyal" northwest. Must be said that leaving venetians alone is more than enough for them to florish, so it was a definite improvement.

>How was it rigged?
No option to be independent, which is what most venetians wanted at the time.

He was an asshole but books of history don't talk about his strages because he for italians is the "savior"

>The Serenissima was already dead since long long time when it was dissolved.
This is such a stupid thing to say. It was a minor political player, sure, but it was still a centre of culture and a wealthier than average european region.
How was it dead? Just because it couldn't compete with world spanning empires?

>there's something really weird about revolts all over Europe flaring up within such a short span
There really isn't. Every new revolt destabilizes the current powers further, making more revolts easier. You've literally witnessed a similar occurence with the arab spring this decade.

>It was the French troops that spread ideas of the revolution among the common folk
Kek

Just imagine:
>Oui, baby, c'm'ere
>let me tell you about how beautiful... the revolutionary ideas are
>zip
>yea, look at those ideals
>want to get a taste, mon amour?
>oh oui, we are gonna spread it all over the populace

OP, if you don't know him already, find some books by Denis Mack Smith. He's the most knowledgeable history you can find when it comes to modern Italian history, not just Risorgimento (though he wrote many books exclusively on the subject)

I

I really really like this image.

>functionally a smaller, more tightly run EU that wasn't bitchwhipped by liberal interests

if you aren't committed to the idea of nation-state, it was a pretty comfy and functional empire desu