Cavour

www.britannica.com/biography/Camillo-Benso-conte-di-Cavour

Camillo Benso, count di Cavour
Piedmontese statesman
Written by: Umberto Marcelli

Camillo Benso, count di Cavour, (born August 10, 1810, Turin, Piedmont, French Empire—died June 6, 1861, Turin, Italy), Piedmontese statesman, a conservative whose
exploitation of international rivalries and of revolutionary movements brought about the unification of Italy (1861) under the House of Savoy, with himself as the
first prime minister of the new kingdom.
Family and early life

The Cavours were an ancient family that had served the House of Savoy as soldiers and officials since the 16th century. Genevan by birth and Calvinist by religion, his
mother brought into the Cavour family the influence of Geneva, a city open to all the political, religious, and social movements of the period. The French Revolution
imperilled the fortunes of the Cavours because of their close ties with the ancien régime; but Cavour’s father, Michele, reestablished the family in an eminent
position in Napoleonic society. Camillo even had as godparents Prince Camillo Borghese—after whom he was named—and Pauline Bonaparte, the Prince’s wife and Napoleon’s
favourite sister.

At the age of 10 he was enrolled at the Military Academy of Turin. As the younger son who could not hope for the economic and social position that would fall to his
elder brother, Camillo saw a brilliant career open up before him under the protection of the court of Charles Albert, prince of Savoy and Piedmont. In 1826 he obtained
a commission as lieutenant in the corps of engineers.

During his six years at the academy political ideas began to fascinate him; echoes of the constitutionalist Piedmontese revolution of 1821 reached the school,
provoking in some of its members a flash of liberal and national spirit that was, however, immediately extinguished. Among his family, Camillo heard the great issues
of the day being discussed: the internal politics of France under the restored Bourbons; the revolt against Turkish repression in Greece; the liberal Decembrist rising
in Russia in 1825. He showed his sympathy, in his usual enthusiastic manner, with the liberals and with personalities such as Benjamin Franklin and Santorre di
Santarosa, the famous ill-fated leader of the 1821 revolution in Piedmont, who was also a distant relative. A close friendship with a cadet three years his senior,
Baron Severino Cassio, seems to have had a particular influence on his political views. Cassio, suspected of republicanism, imbued Camillo with patriotic ideas.

The Cavour family, greatly disturbed by their son’s association with a cadet holding compromising political views, ordered Camillo to terminate it—not without
provoking his indignation and bitterness. This interference of the family was dictated by expediency, for in July 1824 the marchese Michele had obtained for Camillo
the appointment as personal page to Charles Albert. His lack of enthusiasm for the court position and his open ridicule of the page-boy’s uniform he was obliged to
wear caused a scandal and confirmed the growing suspicions about the rebellious disposition of the young count Cavour. The insulted Charles Albert banished Camillo
from court and—vainly—tried to persuade King Charles Felix to strip Camillo of his commission. The episode created an irreparable break between Camillo and the
hereditary prince and for about 20 years made it impossible for Cavour to take any part in official political life.
Development of political ideals

His military career began in the engineers. He was first stationed in Turin, then in various frontier posts, where fortifications were being constructed; yet, wherever
he was, Cavour remained dissatisfied. In 1830 he was sent to Genoa, where he met Anna Giustiniani Schiaffino, an ardent advocate of ultrademocratic and republican
ideas, whose salon was frequented by many members of the Carbonari, the secret revolutionary society whose guiding force then was Giuseppe Mazzini. Cavour’s fervent
radicalism was inspired by his love for Anna Schiaffino and by his renewed friendship with Severino Cassio, now a fellow officer in the engineers at Genoa.

The French revolution of July 1830, which overthrew the last Bourbon, Charles X, and installed Louis-Philippe, “the citizen king,” also played a great part in
strengthening Cavour’s revolutionary ardour. Under the direction of Severino Cassio, he studied English in order to follow more easily the newspapers reporting
political events in Europe. He was influenced by the liberal ideas of the French writers Benjamin Constant and François Guizot, and his adversaries remained those of
his childhood: paternalistic absolutism; legitimist reactionaries representing the landed interests, the aristocracy, and the clergy; and the union of throne and
altar. Of necessity this attitude pitted him consciously against the caste to which he belonged.

The influence of the events in France on the temperamental Cavour once again aroused official suspicions, and this time he was subjected to police surveillance. As
usual, his father’s intervention helped to avert more serious consequences; in this case he was simply transferred to a remote mountain fort. It had become obvious,
however, that he could no longer remain in the army, from which he resigned in 1831. His father found him a sort of occupation: he was appointed mayor of a village
south of Turin and also became the administrator of extensive holdings in the vicinity belonging to his uncles.

Although these modest occupations served to fill his time and to insulate him from his family, they aggravated his despondency over what appeared to be the end of his
political ambitions. Social interests began to absorb him: the problems of poverty and of prisoner education became the subjects of his researches. In 1834 he wrote a
memoir on poverty in Piedmont, which was published the following year in London in the Report from His Majesty’s Commissioners for inquiring into the Administration
and practical Operation of the Poor Laws. A second pamphlet on the history of the Poor Laws in England was edited and published by Cavour in 1835 at Turin.

During those years he was at last able to make his first long-awaited visit to Paris and London, thus widening his knowledge of Europe. He now came to know the two
greatest and most advanced Western capitals—both ruled by constitutional and liberal regimes (however much they differed in character) and both attempting to effect
the boldest economic and social changes. He took a feverishly active interest in the parliamentary life of England and France; he attended university lectures and
visited factories, railways, ports, hospitals, schools, and prisons. The experience he acquired in the two Western capitals and in Geneva set him firmly on the path he
had already instinctively chosen: always to follow the “golden mean.” He was repelled equally by the revolutionaries who wished to destroy society through terror in
order to construct a better one without realizing that their methods would defile human dignity, and by the reactionaries, who, in blindly opposing all progress,
eventually provoked revolutionary uprisings. Rejecting all extremes, he wanted above all to be a good European. Yet Cavour always remained a patriot. When his worth
and his great ambition were acknowledged in France and one of his friends invited him to abandon the petty and wretched Piedmont of Charles Albert for a brilliant
career in France, Cavour rejected the invitation.

In 1835, after his return from his travels, he began to engage in a fruitful series of enterprises that helped him to accumulate a considerable fortune. He also
achieved a certain reputation with his writing. Even without directly facing the question of Italy’s future political structure, all his writings proclaimed social or
economic principles that could in no way be reconciled with the prevailing conditions in Italy. Above all, the economic measures and the construction of railroads
proposed by Cavour would have transformed the Italy of that period beyond recognition.
Statesman

Cavour, Camillo Benso, conte di [Credit: Alinari—Anderson/Art Resource, New York]
Gradually, as the year 1848 drew near and the first gusts of the great revolutionary storm of that year could be felt, Cavour’s interest in politics began once more to
dominate all others. This is shown by the chronological sequence of his writings. His transition to politics was completed when King Charles Albert decided to embark
on measures of reform and to concede a certain amount of freedom to the press. Cavour took advantage of this to found the newspaper Il Risorgimento, which soon became
the champion of increasingly drastic reforms. After taking a leading part in persuading Charles Albert to grant a liberal constitution, Cavour used Il Risorgimento to
propagate the idea of an immediate war with Austria (which still ruled Lombardy and Venetia) as a historical necessity. Once elected a member of Parliament in June
1848, however, he assumed an intermediate position between the conservatives and the revolutionaries, thus calling forth the enmity of both left and right.

The war against Austria was undertaken, but developments went against the Piedmontese. This prompted Cavour to offer his services as a volunteer until, on being
elected a deputy in the third Legislature (July 1848), he began to fight for the approval of a peace treaty with Austria, although the extremists of the left wanted to
continue a war that was, in effect, already lost. The intelligence and expertise he displayed in the debates on financial and military questions gained him a prominent
place among the deputies of the majority that supported the right-wing government of Massimo d’Azeglio. In October 1850, he was offered the post of minister of
agriculture and soon became the most active and influential member of the Cabinet. Through a series of treaties with France, Belgium, and England, Cavour attempted to
bring about the greatest possible amount of free trade. He also sought to form a network of economic interests with the great powers to pave the way for a political
alliance against Austria. His appointment as minister of finance in 1850 was evidence of his growing ambitions.

Cavour now sought to create an alliance between the centre right and the centre left that would form a new majority with greater ability to move toward a policy of
secularization and modernization in Piedmont. The alliance, called the connubio (“marriage”), brought about the resignation of d’Azeglio, whose parliamentary standing
had been completely destroyed. After vain attempts to restore an effective d’Azeglio ministry, Victor Emmanuel II, who had succeeded his father Charles Albert in 1849,
resigned himself to entrusting the formation of a government to Cavour, who from that time (Nov. 4, 1852) until his death was his country’s acknowledged political
leader.

The European drama into which Cavour was drawn against his will began in 1854 with the Crimean War (1853–56), which saw France and England allied against Russia in
order to defend the integrity of the Turkish territory threatened by Russia’s determination to open the Dardanelles for passage from the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean. Victor Emmanuel immediately pledged his help to the French and English representatives. Cavour, whose ministers voted against the Crimean venture, was
on the point of being dismissed by the King if he rejected the alliance or of being forced to resign by his colleagues if he accepted it. Accepting the alliance with
customary boldness and self-confidence, he averted dismissal by the King and embarked upon war. The turning point of the war came with the Anglo-French-Sardinian
victory that persuaded Austria to cast aside its neutrality and, by means of an ultimatum, force Russia to make peace.

With some difficulty, Cavour secured the participation of the small power of Piedmont in the peace negotiations at the Congress of Paris (1856), at which the greatest
European powers were represented. By supporting Napoleon III’s undeclared yet obvious intention to intervene militarily in Italy in the near future and by taking
advantage of the general animosity toward Austria, which had joined the allies in the Crimean War only when victory over Russia was assured, Cavour succeeded in
proposing the discussion of the Italian problem on the grounds that it was one that threatened European peace. In his view, peace was threatened by Austrian
encroachment, papal misgovernment in central Italy, and the autocratic rule of the Spanish Bourbons in southern Italy. Thus, for the first time, the Italian question
was presented for diplomatic consideration in a manner favouring the liberation of the peninsula. The difficulty was to persuade the two great powers, France and
England, to persevere in their support of an anti-Austrian policy on the part of Piedmont.

In Paris, Cavour had occasion to meet and appraise the stature of Europe’s most capable diplomats and to examine the reasons behind the policies of the great powers.
He knew full well that it was illusory to hope for the disinterested assistance of Europe in the Italian cause; nevertheless, with his tireless energy and unlimited
capacity to take advantage of the most adverse situations, he finally succeeded in winning Napoleon III over to his side. His trump card was the proposition to
reestablish France as the leading power on the Continent by an expedition into Italy that would replace Austrian domination of the peninsula with French rule.

At a secret meeting at Plombières in July 1858, Napoleon III and Cavour agreed to provoke a European war against Austria in the following year. At the first suspicions
of a secret agreement, the European powers—especially England—began a campaign to prevent the French and Piedmontese from carrying out their intentions, a campaign so
intense that Cavour saw himself being dragged toward the brink of personal and national catastrophe. He was saved by an incredible blunder on the part of Austria,
which sent an ultimatum threatening war unless Piedmont disarmed at once. The Franco-Piedmontese alliance accordingly came into force, and this time Austria’s superior
military power was counterbalanced by the French contribution. Franco-Piedmontese victories followed one after another until Napoleon signed an armistice with Emperor
Francis Joseph I at Villafranca in July 1859.

The war had unleashed revolutionary movements in Tuscany, in the duchies of Modena and Parma, and in the papal states between the Po and the Apennines, from Bologna to
Cattolica; the ducal rulers had been expelled, as had the papal legates. The armistice seemed to call everything into question, except for Victor Emmanuel’s
acquisition of Lombardy, which was a minimal gain compared with Cavour’s dreams of liberating Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic. At Villafranca, Cavour vented his
rage and frustration on the King and resigned his office.

Contrary to his usual perception, he realized only later the advantages to be derived from the armistice. The revolutionary landslide in Italy could no longer be
checked, nor could the French emperor withdraw from his position as protector of Italian self-determination. After being returned to power by the reluctant king in
January 1860, Cavour worked for the annexation of the central duchies that had formerly belonged to the ancient rulers of Piedmont; he was able to do this only by
ceding Savoy and Nice to France.
Unification of Italy

The surrender of Nice to France vastly sharpened the conflict between Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi, for Nice was the popular hero’s birthplace. The surrender of
Piedmont’s Alpine bulwark could be compensated for only by territorial expansion into central Italy (at the pope’s expense) and into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
But Cavour, by now the black sheep of European diplomacy for having disturbed its tranquillity too often, was not in a position to take the initiative, even though
England now favoured his policy.

It was Garibaldi who resolved the stalemate caused by Cavour’s enforced inactivity. Sailing with his famous Thousand to Sicily, he destroyed Bourbon rule there and in
the south. The daring diplomacy of Piedmont and Cavour seemed momentarily to be eclipsed by the military exploits of the red-shirted hero, but more important, there
now appeared the first outlines of rivalry between a moderate, monarchist Italy and a revolutionary, republican Italy. The danger of a rupture was averted by the good
sense and magnanimity of Garibaldi and by a diplomatic stratagem of Cavour. Cavour, taking up his stance before Europe as the defender of law and order against
revolutionary excesses, and before Napoleon as the defender of the last strip of papal territory against attack by Garibaldi, sent an army under Victor Emmanuel across
Marche and Umbria in order to check the “hero of the two worlds” and to weld the two Italies into one united kingdom.

There still remained the problem of establishing a capital. Cavour felt that only Rome could be the capital of the new state; but that meant he had to face the most
complex problem of his life—that of the position to be assigned to the pope, the head of Catholicism, once Rome had become the capital of Italy. Cavour wholeheartedly
accepted the concept of the separation of church and state; in his negotiations with the papacy he became a passionate supporter of the idea. He maintained that the
liberty of the church was to be the fulcrum of the renewal of the world, even though this involved the renunciation of its temporal power and the surrender of Rome to
the Italian nation. An entirely spiritual church and papacy, he asserted, would revive mankind. Pius IX’s answer to these proposals was negative. But while Cavour was
still vigorously promoting his formula of “a free church in a free state,” he fell seriously ill and died, after having formed a nation in 10 years of impassioned and
restless activity.
Umberto Marcelli