Mediterranean Southwest Europe (1840–1851 CE): Liberalism, Constitutional Conflicts, and Early Unification Efforts

The era 1840–1851 CE in Mediterranean Southwest Europe is defined by intense ideological struggles between liberal factions in Spain and burgeoning nationalist efforts in Italy, each significantly influencing the region’s evolving political landscape.

Liberal Ascendancy and Ideological Divisions in Spain

Following the conclusion of the First Carlist War in 1839, Spain's political atmosphere remains charged with ideological tension. The regency of Maria Cristina, initially supported by liberal elements within the military, is destabilized by internal dissatisfaction, ultimately forcing her resignation in 1840. A liberal government subsequently assumes control, marking the beginning of a prolonged struggle between competing liberal factions.

Spanish Liberals are united in their anticlericalism, constitutionalism, and economic liberalism, advocating for a centralized administrative structure, written constitutions, and laissez-faire economics. However, deep divisions exist between Moderates, who favor restricted suffrage and strong institutional guarantees to protect elite interests, and Progressives, who seek broader electoral participation and greater popular involvement. A more radical faction, the Democrats, emerges advocating republican ideals and far-reaching social reforms.

Moderates secure substantial support from the army and local political bosses known as caciques, ensuring parliamentary dominance through patronage networks. Their coalition with supporters of Queen Isabella II maintains stability but faces ongoing tensions due to unresolved issues regarding state relations with the Roman Catholic Church. Despite ideological opposition to clerical power, Moderates compromise with the Church, securing state recognition of ecclesiastical influence in education, though this fails to secure significant rural conservative support.

Italian Nationalism and Revolutionary Activity

In Italy, nationalist aspirations continue to gain momentum against the backdrop of persistent foreign dominance—Austria in the north and the Bourbons in the south. The influential revolutionary figure Giuseppe Garibaldi, associated with Young Italy and deeply committed to republican principles, becomes an emblematic leader advocating for Italian unification.

Revolutionary fervor intensifies in the context of broader European upheavals in 1848, igniting widespread insurrections. Palermo sees the outbreak of a significant popular uprising that rapidly spreads across Sicily and subsequently to the mainland. These revolts combine nationalist and republican goals, challenging both Bourbon and Austrian rule.

The Kingdom of Sardinia, governed by the ambitious statesman Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, positions itself as a focal point of nationalist sentiment, yet its initial military effort in the First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849) against Austria ends in failure. Despite these setbacks, the foundations for future unification efforts are firmly established.

Andorra's Continued Stability

Amid regional turmoil, Andorra maintains its traditional stability, continuing to function effectively under its longstanding arrangement of dual sovereignty between the Bishop of Urgell and the French head of state. This arrangement safeguards the principality's autonomy and economic independence from broader geopolitical conflicts.

Cultural and Intellectual Developments

The era witnesses sustained cultural engagement with liberal, nationalist, and Enlightenment ideals throughout Mediterranean Southwest Europe. Intellectual currents and political activism intertwine, fostering a climate conducive to revolutionary change, particularly visible in the flourishing nationalist movements in Italy and the liberal constitutional debates in Spain.

Conclusion: Prelude to Transformative Change

The years 1840–1851 are critical in Mediterranean Southwest Europe's political evolution, marked by liberal constitutional struggles in Spain and rising nationalist efforts toward Italian unification. Despite immediate setbacks, these developments significantly shape the trajectory of subsequent political transformations, laying essential groundwork for the region's mid-nineteenth-century revolutions.

The most famous member of Young Italy is the revolutionary and general Giuseppe Garibaldi, renowned for his extremely loyal followers, who lead the Italian republican drive for unification in Southern Italy.

However, the Northern Italy monarchy of the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose government is led by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, also had ambitions of establishing a united Italian state.

In the context of the 1848 liberal revolutions that sweep through Europe, an unsuccessful first war of independence is declared on Austria.

The various Italian states are ruled by either the papacy, the Bourbons or the Habsburgs.

The first of the European revolutions of 1848 begins in Palermo as a popular insurrection.

Soon taking on overtones of Sicilian separatism, it spreads throughout the island and, eventually, the entire peninsula.

When the dust settles some twenty-two years later, Italy will have become a single nation united under a hereditary monarch who is neither Bourbon or Habsburg, and the pope will have imprisoned himself in his sole remaining enclave, the Vatican City.

Russia's Tsar Nicholas I intervenes on behalf of the Habsburgs and helps suppress an uprising in Hungary when a series of revolutions convulses Europe in 1848; he also urges Prussia not to accept a liberal constitution.

Having helped conservative forces repel the specter of revolution, Nicholas seems to dominate Europe.

The year 1848 is historically famous for the wave of revolutions, a series of widespread struggles for more liberal governments, that break out from Brazil to Hungary; although most fail in their immediate aims, they significantly alter the political and philosophical landscape and will have major ramifications throughout the rest of the century.

The peace imposed on the Italian peninsula from 1831 to 1848 has favored economic development, which has come in varying degrees everywhere except in the south.

Here the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies remains backward, and the growth of bourgeois landownership that results from the division of great feudal holdings does nothing to change the situation.

Thus, the imbalance between north and south continues to increase.

Carlo Cattaneo's journal Il politecnico, founded in Milan in 1839, argues that the progress of science and technology necessary to fuel economic growth depends upon government reforms.

In the same year, a congress of Italian scientists holds its first annual meeting in Pisa.

Through 1847, each subsequent meeting had assumed a markedly more nationalistic character.

Thus, conditions have become more favorable for moderates to realize their programs of increasing public education and abolishing censorship and police surveillance.

In the cause of economic unification they endeavor to standardize tolls and trade practices and to increase cultural exchange among the Italian states.

They also seek to achieve representative institutions compatible with Italian traditions and with Roman Catholicism.

Genoa, ...

...Turin, and Milan meanwhile begin to lay the foundation for becoming important European financial and industrial centers.

Piedmontese and Lombard manufacturing as well as banking expand rapidly.