**Joseph Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi were two revolutionary leaders in what would become known as Italy supporting the poor and downtrodden working class. Likewise, in France during the time of their revolution, the peasants in the Third Assembly were the ones who revolted from the Estates General and King Louis. However, in Italy there was no absolute monarch that the people were revolting against. The main difference between the revolutionaries in Italy and the revolutionaries in France was that in France their main purpose was to break away from their current monarchy, whereas in Italy their main purpose was to help the poor to a better life by first establishing a government, not by revising one that was already there.
**In France in the late 1700s, there was to be an Estates General with the nobility of the First Assembly, the clergy of the Second Assembly, and the common people of the Third Assembly. However, thinking they deserved more rights than they were being offered, the people of the Third Assembly rebelled, refusing to attend the Estates General, locking themselves inside a tennis court building, and writing their Tennis Court Oath. The people of what was now being called the National Assembly wanted a new kind of government, which was the main reason that they revolted. They wanted King Louis to overturn the throne, or at least establish some sort of unicameral or bicameral assembly so that power would be evenly distributed within the country. They wrote various documents including a new constitution to try and get their current leaders to see that something must be changed.
**Mazzini and Garibaldi and their followers revolted because of almost the exact opposite reason. In the loose confederation of city-states that would become known as Italy, there was nothing that united them like the King united France. Lombardy and Venetia were owned by Austria, Piedmont-Sardinia was its own independent state, the Vatican had its own territory in the papal states, etc. In this convoluted conglomeration of lands and people, there was no direct order. In this boot-shaped mess, the poor people often got left behind or neglected. In France, the people were neglected because the king and his nobles went off to enjoy a life of luxury in Versailles, not because there was no nobility to take care of them and their needs.
**Mazzini and Garibaldi led their revolutions not because they wanted to change the governmental structure from something they did not like, but because they wanted to have some sort of concrete governmental structure in the first place. Just like Victor Emmanuel and Count Cavour of Piedmont-Sardinia wanted Italy to be united, Mazzini and Garibaldi also wanted some sort of order. They wanted someone to represent the poor, to make their lives better. The closest thing they had was the Vatican, but the Pope and his bishops were too involved in religion to be true governmental leaders. They could not help the poor in the same way that a King or some political leader could. France revolted because they had a real leader that they wanted to overthrow; Mazzini and Garibaldi revolted for the people, so that a new leader would come and let a new world rise up like the sun.
**Though revolutions can sometimes blend together and all seem the same, the difference between the revolution of Mazzini and Garibaldi and the French Revolution was that the former occurred in the lack of the government to help the common people, whereas the latter occurred to change the current government to help the common people. France, obviously, was at least a nation when the people revolted; Italy was not even its own independent country. In the end, both France got its constitutional monarchy and Italy got its government under King Victor Immanuel, though neither worked out exactly like the revolutionaries had imagined it.
No comments:
Post a Comment