Italy and Germany: the Congress of Vienna and the Road to 1848

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Italy was split into eight separate states, Austrian princes placed on key thrones, and Lombardy-Venetia ruled directly by Austria. Liberal constitutions were abolished and conservative rulers restored.

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A loose association of 39 German states set up in 1815, with a Diet in Frankfurt representing governments, not peoples. Austria chaired it and used it to block nationalism and liberalism.

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A set of repressive laws pushed through the German Confederation by Metternich, banning liberal newspapers, closing student Burschenschaften, and setting up a political spy commission across German universities.

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An Italian secret revolutionary society. They led failed uprisings in Naples and Piedmont (1820–21) and in the Papal States and duchies (1831), both crushed by Austria.

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Mazzini believed Italy must become a unified democratic republic through popular uprising — no kings, no foreign help. He founded Young Italy in 1831.

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Gioberti (Del primato, 1843) proposed a federal union of existing Italian states led by the Pope — conservative and Catholic. Mazzini wanted a republic built by revolution. Gioberti's plan collapsed in 1848 when Pius IX refused to fight Austria.

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The 'pre-March' period in Germany, 1815–1848. During this time nationalist and liberal ideas grew despite Metternich's repression, and economic change (industrialisation, the Zollverein) built pressure that exploded in the 1848 revolutions.

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A customs union led by Prussia that unified the trade of most German states, excluding Austria. It created economic integration and gave Prussia leadership of German economic life — quietly building unity before political unity came.

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Long-term: decades of repressed nationalism and liberalism, social change from industrialisation. Short-term: harvest failures (1845–47) caused food crises; revolution in Paris (February 1848) and then the fall of Metternich (March 1848) signalled that the old order was vulnerable.

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He declared war on Austria and granted a constitution (the Statuto). His army was defeated at Custoza (1848) and Novara (1849), and he abdicated. Piedmont kept the Statuto — this became the constitutional foundation for later Italian unification.

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It had no army and debated endlessly (Grossdeutsch vs Kleindeutsch). When it offered the German crown to Frederick William IV of Prussia in 1849, he refused, calling it 'a crown from the gutter'. The Parliament dissolved and Austrian and Prussian armies restored order.

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That popular revolution without military power and foreign alliances cannot win. Cavour in Italy concluded that unification needed Piedmont's army plus France as an ally. Bismarck concluded that Germany would be unified by 'iron and blood' — Prussian military force, not liberal parliaments.