Welcome back to the Deep Dive. You know, there
is a specific spot in Rome that I always tell
people they have to visit. Not for the beauty
necessarily, but just for the sheer overwhelming
scale of it. You're talking about the Altateo
del Patria. I am. You stand in the middle of
Piazza Venezia, you look up, and your vision
is just totally eclipsed by this blindingly white
mountain of marble. They call it the wedding
cake or the typewriter. It has a lot of nicknames
and not all of them are flattering. It's aggressive
architecture. It is aggressive. It screams at
you. But the focal point of that massive structure
is the guy on the horse, Victor Emmanuel II.
And the inscription right there says, Padre della
Patria, father of the fatherland. And if you
just look at the statue, you think, okay, this
is the Italian George Washington. This is the
stoic hero who stitched a fractured peninsula
together into a nation for the first time since,
what, the Roman Empire? That is the billboard
version. It is the billboard version. And it's
the version that was drilled into generations
of Italian schoolchildren. But then, you know,
you actually dig into the diplomatic cables from
the 1860s. Right. Specifically, the archives
from the British Foreign Office. And you meet
a completely different human being. And that's
what really shocked me in the prep for this.
I was reading these reports from Lord Clarendon,
the British foreign secretary. Yes. He visits
Florence in 1867, meets the political elite and
writes back to London. And he isn't describing
a hero. He's describing a liability. To put it
mildly. He calls Victor Emmanuel an imbecile,
a dishonest man who lies to everyone. And this
was the kicker, someone who is universally seen
as likely to ruin the dynasty. It is a massive,
massive disconnect. You have the father of the
nation on one hand. And a dishonest imbecile
on the other. And honestly, the goal of this
deep dive isn't to figure out which one is true,
because, spoiler alert, they both are in a way,
but to understand how a rough, hunting -obsessed,
skirt -chasing king managed to survive long enough
to become a legend. That is the key word. Survival.
Because looking at a starting point, he shouldn't
have lasted a week. No, the odds were terrible.
To understand Victor Emmanuel, you have to understand
the disaster he inherited. He wasn't born into
a unified Italy. He was born into the House of
Savoy, ruling the Kingdom of Sardinia. Right,
which is often called Piedmont Sardinia. Exactly.
And in 1849, his father, King Charles Albert,
makes a catastrophic mistake. He decides to fight
the Austrian Empire to liberate northern Italy,
and he gets absolutely crushed at the Battle
of Novara. And this isn't just a lost battle,
right? This is like a regime ending defeat. Oh,
totally. The humiliation is so absolute that
Charles Albert feels he literally cannot look
his subjects in the eye. He abdicates on the
spot. Just quits. Quits. He flees to Portugal
and dies soon after. So Victor Emmanuel inherits
the crown in a tent on a battlefield with the
enemy army marching toward his capital. It's
like about a rough first day at the office. I
mean, the treasury is empty, the army is shattered,
and the Austrians are dictating terms. He becomes
king on March 23rd, 1849. His very first act
is to sit down with Field Marshal Radetzky, the
Austrian commander. The guy who just destroyed
his father. The very same guy. And he has to
basically beg for an armistice. And he actually
pulls it off. He does. He negotiates the armistice
of Vignale. And this is where we see the first
glimpse of his style. He manages to get relatively
favorable terms. You know, he keeps his territory
intact. Okay, so that's a small win. It is. But
the catch is he has to go back to Turin and sell
this peace treaty to his own people. And they
are not buying it. Why not? Because the politicians
in Piedmont wanted to keep fighting. The Chamber
of Deputies, the parliament. refused to ratify
the treaty. They thought it was dishonorable.
They were sort of living in this fantasy world
where they could still beat Austria. OK. Now,
Victor Emmanuel is a young king. He's a soldier.
And he looks at this parliamentary deadlock and
thinks, I don't have time for this. So what does
he do? Does he try to persuade them? He bulldozes
them. He fires his prime minister and brings
in a new guy, Massimo de Selio. Then he issues
the proclamation of Montgomery. Which is what?
He dissolves the parliament and forces new elections.
Effectively, he tells the voters, send me a parliament
that will sign this treaty or I'm going to shut
this whole democratic experiment down. Wow. That
sounds, well, it sounds like a threat. It was
a threat. And it worked. The voters got scared
and elected a more moderate chamber that signed
the peace. But it shows you right away. He wasn't
a soft touch. He was willing to strong arm the
democratic institutions when he felt it was necessary
for survival. And speaking of strong arming,
we have to talk about Genoa because the outline
mentions a revolt there in 1849 and the king's
reaction is intense. This is crucial for understanding
his character. See, Genoa wasn't happy about
being part of the kingdom of Sardinia in the
first place. Right, they were historically a
republic. Exactly. They resented the Savoy monarchy.
When they heard about the defeat against Austria,
they didn't rally around the king. They revolted.
They kicked out the royal garrison and declared
a provisional government. So his own subjects
are seizing the moment to break away while he's
dealing with the Austrians. Precisely. And this
is where the father of the fatherland mask slips
completely. He sends the army to Genoa, not to
negotiate, but to crush the city. He orders a
bombardment. A bombardment of his own city. Yes.
And in a private letter from this time, he writes
a line that historians still wince at. He refers
to the rebels, his own subjects, as a vile and
infected race of Cannae. Cannae meaning scoundrels.
Scoundrels rabble dogs. It captures his mindset
perfectly. He wasn't a Democrat. He was an old
school authoritarian soldier. He viewed disorder
as a disease that needed to be cauterized. Okay,
so I'm confused. We have a king who bullies parliament,
bombs his own citizens, and calls them a vile
race. How on earth does this guy end up with
a reputation as a liberal hero? That pivot makes
no sense. That is the accidental genius of Victor
Emmanuel II. He hated the disorder, but, and
this is the big but, he kept the rule book, the
Statuto Albertino, the constitution his father
had granted. He didn't tear it up. He didn't.
And you have to look at the context of 1849 Europe.
The revolutions had failed. Every other monarch,
the pope, the king of Naples, the grand duke
of Tuscany, they were all tearing up their constitutions,
arresting liberals and going back to absolute
rule. So he was the only one who didn't. He was
the last man standing, maybe out of honor to
his father, maybe because he realized it was
a useful pressure valve. But by simply not tearing
it up, he unintentionally turned Piedmont into
a sanctuary. It became the only safe space in
Italy. I see. So if you were a poet, a journalist,
or a radical thinker fling from Naples or Rome,
you went to Turin. Exactly. You went to Piedmont
because it was the only place you wouldn't be
thrown in a dungeon for speaking your mind. So
even though the king personally was a rough authoritarian,
structurally, his kingdom became the beacon of
liberty. And he attracted the best and brightest
minds of the generation. He did. Which brings
us to the most important partnership of his life.
The man who would become the brain to Victor
Emmanuel's brawn. Enter Count Cavour. Camillo
Benso. Indeed. The outline describes them as
partners, but everything I read suggests they
couldn't stand being in the same room. Partners
is a very polite diplomatic term. They were oil
and fire. You have to visualize Cavour. He's
this short, bespectacled, pot -bellied intellectual.
He speaks French better than Italian. He loves
banking. He loves railroads. He reads The Economist.
He's a modern European technocrat. Okay, I have
that picture. And the king. The king is distinct.
He's huge with this massive handlebar mustache
that he waxed upward. He eats like a peasant,
literally mountains of pasta and beans. He speaks
in a coarse Piedmontese dialect and he hates,
absolutely hates being indoors. So not a fan
of long meetings. If he wasn't shooting a wild
boar or chasing a mistress, he was bored out
of his mind. So Cavour is trying to explain complex
macroeconomic reforms or diplomatic nuance. And
the king is just checking his watch to go hunting.
It was worse than that. Cavour would treat the
king like a junior employee. There's a famous
anecdote where Cavour was droning on about policy
and the king trying to interject with an opinion.
Cavour just glared at him and said, sir, I am
the one who knows about these things. He said
that to the king. I'm surprised the king didn't
have him arrested. Oh, he wanted to. He called
Cavour a tyrant in private. He complained that
Cavour made him feel like a prisoner in his own
palace. So why keep him around? Because here
is the insight. The king tolerated it. He recognized
that Cavour was the smartest man in the room.
That is a rare quality in a monarch, putting
your ego aside because you know you need the
other guy's brain to survive. And together they
hatched one of the wildest schemes in diplomatic
history, the Crimean War. This is Networking
101, but with artillery. It's 1855. Britain and
France are fighting Russia in the Crimea, modern
-day Ukraine. I looked at the map, but I'm still
confused. Piedmont is a small state near France.
They have zero beef with Russia. Why on earth
do they send 15 ,000 men to die in the mud in
Sevastopol? It's a great question. And Cavour
was actually reluctant. He knew it was expensive
and dangerous. Why poke the Russian bear? But
the king... He was for it. The king was all in.
He wanted glory. He wanted to prove that the
Italian army wasn't a joke after the defeat in
1849. But surely there was a strategy beyond
just glory. Yes, and this is where the genius
comes in. Cavour eventually realized that if
they sent troops, they were buying an admission
ticket. An admission ticket to what? To the big
kids table. If you shed blood alongside Britain
and France, they owe you. Or at least they have
to let you speak. After the war at the Paris
Peace Conference in 1856, little Piedmont gets
a seat right next to the great powers. And Cavour
uses that moment to complain about Austria. Precisely.
He doesn't ask for land immediately. He plays
the victim. He tells the British and French,
look, Italy is a powder keg because of Austrian
oppression. If you don't help us fix it, you're
going to have revolutions that will destabilize
all of Europe. He scares them into listening.
Which sets the stage for the real game. Because
you can't kick Austria out of Italy alone. You
need a big friend. And thanks to Crimea, they
had one. Napoleon III of France. This leads to
the secret meeting at Plombieres in 1858. And
this part reads like a spy thriller. It really
does. Cavour and the French emperor, Napoleon
III, meet secretly at a spa town. No aides, no
minutes, just two men carving out the map of
Europe. What's the deal they cut? It's a transaction.
Pure real politic. Napoleon VIII agrees to bring
the massive French army to help fight Austria
and free northern Italy. In exchange. There's
always an in exchange. Always. In exchange, Piedmont
has to give France two territories. Nice and
Savoy. Savoy. But that's the ancestral home of
the House of Savoy. That's like, I don't know,
Scottish king giving away Edinburgh to get London.
It was an amputation. You have to understand,
the dynasty had ruled Savoy for 800 years. It
was their cradle. Did the king hesitate? He was
heartbroken. He reportedly walked around the
palace in a daze when he heard the terms. But
he signed. And that tells you everything about
his ambition. That he was willing to trade the
past for the future. Exactly. He valued the future
kingdom of Italy more than the past kingdom of
Savoy. That is the moment, I think, where he
truly stops being a Savoyard duke and starts
being an Italian king. So the deal is signed.
The Second War of Independence kicks off in 1859.
And initially, it goes well. It goes great. The
French and Piedmontese armies are smashing the
Austrians. They take Milan. They are pushing
east. It looks like they are going to liberate
Venice. The dream is happening. But then... The
betrayal. Napoleon III gets cold feet. The casualties
are higher than he expected. The Battle of Solferino
was a bloodbath, shocking even by 19th century
standards. Okay. And he sees Prussia mobilizing
on the German border. He gets nervous. So without
telling Cavour, without telling the king, he
meets with the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph
at Villafranca and signs a separate peace. Just
cuts the legs out from under his allies. Completely.
The deal is, Piedmont gets Lombardy, Milan, but
Austria keeps Venice. The war stops halfway through.
The war must have been furious. Furious doesn't
cover it. He went into a rage. He stormed into
the king's quarters, disheveled, screaming, disrespecting
the monarch. He demanded the king continue the
war alone. Which would have been suicide. Absolute
suicide. The Piedmontese army couldn't beat Austria
without France. And this is the moment where
Victor Emmanuel earns his keep. Cavour is hysterical,
acting on principle. The king is pragmatic. He
sees the reality of the situation. He realizes
he has been screwed, but he also realizes that
half a loaf is better than no bread. So he accepts
the treaty. He accepts it. He swallows the bitter
pill. Cavour resigns in protest, literally quits
the government. But the king stays in the saddle.
He secures Milan. He banks the win. It's that
survival instinct again. But even though the
war stopped... The momentum didn't. This is the
domino effect mentioned in the outline. Right.
Cavour was out, but the fire he lit was still
burning. The central Italian states, Tuscany,
Modena, Parma, they saw the Austrians getting
beaten, and they decided to jump ship. They held
plebiscites. Popular vote. And voted to join
Piedmont. So the kingdom doubles in size almost
overnight. But we are still missing the bottom
half of the boot, the south. And this brings
us to the wild card, the man in the red shirt.
Giuseppe Garibaldi. The Garibaldi problem. This
is where the story shifts from a diplomatic chess
game to a full -blown action movie. Victor Emmanuel
is in a weird spot here, isn't he? Garibaldi
wants to take a volunteer army, the famous Thousand,
and conquer the South. Officially, the king can't
support this. It's illegal. It's piracy. Unofficially,
it's don't ask, don't tell. The king publicly
writes letters saying, don't do it, Giuseppe,
while privately sending signals saying, good
luck, let me know when you win. A plausible deniability
thing. Totally. And Garibaldi, well, he does
the impossible. It is militarily absurd. He lands
in Sicily with a thousand guys in red shirts
and bad muskets, and he conquers the entire island
against a professional army of 25 ,000. Wow.
Then he crosses to the mainland and takes Naples.
The Bourbon kingdom just... collapses like a
house of cards. So Garibaldi is essentially handing
the South to Victor Emmanuel on a silver platter.
What's the problem? The problem is that Garibaldi
doesn't know when to stop. He's a revolutionary.
He hates the Pope. After taking Naples, he announces
he's going to march on Rome. And that's a red
line. It's a nuclear red line. Rome is protected
by a French garrison. Napoleon III is the protector
of the church. If Garibaldi attacks Rome, France
declares war on Italy. Everything they've built,
Milan, Florence, the whole new kingdom, could
be destroyed in a week. So the king has to become
the police officer. Exactly. Victor Emmanuel
has to physically march his royal army south
to intercept Garibaldi before he gets to Rome.
It's a race. And on the way down, he actually
has to fight the pope's army. He does. The Battle
of Castelfidardo. He has to invade the papal
states to get to Garibaldi. He crushes the pope's
army, takes the regions of Marche and Umbria,
but leaves Rome itself alone. very careful about
that. Which leads to one of the most famous scenes
in Italian history, the meeting at Tiano. It's
the climax of the unification. Picture a dusty
road in the countryside. You have the king riding
south on his horse, surrounded by his generals
in gold braid. You have Garibaldi riding north
with his ragtag volunteers. The tension must
have been incredible. I mean, Garibaldi is a
Republican at heart. He could have declared a
republic in the south. He could have said, I
conquered this. It's mine. He could have. It
could have been a civil war. But Garibaldi rode
up, took off his hat, and hailed Victor Emmanuel
as King of Italy. Just like that. Just like that.
He handed over his conquests. It was the ultimate
act of self -sacrifice for the sake of unity.
And so on March 17th, 1861, the Kingdom of Italy
is officially proclaimed. Victor Emmanuel is
the first King of Italy. But, and here is where
we really need to pause. He makes a massive unforced
error right at the start. An error that I think
confirms Lord Clarendon's imbecile comment. The
name thing. The name thing. He is crowned the
first king of a brand new country. Logic dictates,
and many advisors suggested, that he should become
Victor Emmanuel I of Italy. A fresh start. A
new era. A clean slate. But he doesn't do it.
No. He insists on remaining Victor Emmanuel II.
He keeps the numbering from the kingdom of Sardinia.
Why? Was it just ego? It was dynastic pride.
He viewed the unification not as a new birth,
but as an expansion of his house. He was saying
the house of Savoy has simply gotten bigger.
But think about the message that sends. If you're
a person in Naples or Sicily or Florence, you've
just joined this new nation and the king is saying,
I haven't changed. I have simply absorbed you.
It was a disaster. It signaled that this wasn't
a marriage of equals. It was a hostile takeover.
This is what historians call Piedmontization.
They took the Piedmontese constitution, the Piedmontese
tax system, the Piedmontese bureaucracy, and
just copy -pasted it onto the South. So instead
of feeling liberated, the South felt occupied.
Exactly. That, too, on the end of his name, was
a daily reminder that they were second -class
citizens in a Savoyard empire. It fueled the
Southern question, the brigandage, the resentment
that frankly still exists in Italy today. It
was a failure of imagination. He couldn't imagine
being anything other than a Piedmontese king.
It's a fascinating blunder. He gets the land,
but he loses the hearts. Precisely. And in many
ways, that's a story that's still playing out.
So we have a kingdom of Italy, but it's missing
some key pieces, specifically Venice and Rome.
How does he complete the puzzle? Well, he goes
back to the old playbook. Wait for the big powers
to fight each other and then pick a side. Opportunism
at its finest. In 1866, we get the Third War
of Independence. This time, Italy allies with
Prussia against Austria. And how does the Italian
army do? Terrible. They lose the battles on land
and at sea. It's actually quite embarrassing.
But Prussia, Prussia is a machine. They smash
Austria at the Battle of Sadoa. So Italy loses
the battle but wins the war. Basically, yeah.
At the peace table, because Italy was on the
winning team, they get Veneto -Venice anyway.
Victory through association. I'm with the winner.
Exactly. And then the big one, Rome, 1870, the
final peace. This would be the Franco -Prussian
War. Right. Prussia attacks France. Napoleon
III is getting hammered. He has to pull his French
garrison out of Rome to defend Paris. And suddenly,
the Pope is unprotected. And Victor Emmanuel
doesn't hesitate this time. He sends the army
in. September 20, 1870, the breach of Portopia.
Italian troops blast a hole in the ancient walls
and march into Rome. The pope declares himself
a prisoner in the Vatican, but the unification
is effectively complete. Rome becomes the capital
in 1871. And the king moves into the criminal
palace. Which used to be the pope's summer home.
Talk about a power move. He literally moves into
the pope's bedroom. I want to pivot now to the
man himself. Because we have talked about the
wars and the treaties, but the outline mentions
his colorful personal life. And frankly, colorful
seems like a polite British understatement. It
is very polite. Victor Emmanuel II was a man
of robust appetite. While Cavour was trying to
project this image of a civilized, modern European
state to the world, the king was essentially
running a frat house. Let's start with his relationship
with the church, because that connects to his
personal life. He wasn't exactly in the pope's
good graces, was he? Putting it mildly, when
he invaded the papal states, the church fought
back with the ultimate weapon, excommunication.
So the king of Italy, a Catholic country, was
kicked out of the church. Yep. For years, he
was spiritually cut off. This was a huge deal
for a 19th century monarch. He was genuinely
afraid of hell. He was very superstitious. But
he wanted Rome more. It created a massive crisis
of conscience for millions of Italians. Could
you be a good Catholic and a good Italian at
the same time? But clearly, the fear of hell
didn't stop him from enjoying his earthly life.
Let's talk about the women. He was married, right?
He was married in 1842 to his cousin, Adelaide
of Austria. By all accounts, she was a pious,
quiet woman who suffered in silence. She gave
him eight children and died young in 1855. And
after that, he was a free agent. Well, even during
the marriage, he was notoriously unfaithful.
But the love of his life wasn't a princess or
a duchess. It was Rosa Versalana. Everyone called
her Bella Rosen, Beautiful Rose. Who is she?
She was a commoner, the daughter of a drum major
in the army. He met her when she was 14 and he
was 27, which is... Problematic by modern standards,
obviously. But they were together for the rest
of his life. And he didn't hide her. Not at all.
He sent her up in palaces. He gave her titles.
He made her Countess of Mirafiori. The aristocracy
in Turin was horrified. They called her the drum
major's daughter. They refused to curtsy to her.
But the king didn't care. Why her? With all the
royal options in Europe, why Bella Rosin? Because
she was real. She was illiterate. She spoke only
the Piedmontese dialect and she cooked him hearty
peasant food. She created a home where he didn't
have to be your majesty. He could just be the
rough hunting squire that he truly was at heart.
And the public. Did they hate her like the nobles
did? No. And this is the twist. The regular people
loved it. Think about the previous rulers of
Italy, these stiff, distant Habsburgs in powdered
wigs who looked down on everyone. Right. Here
was a king who smelled like tobacco and horses,
who shacked up with a drummer's daughter and
who preferred a plate of agnolotti pasta to a
fancy French banquet. He felt authentic. He was
a populist before populism was a thing. In a
way, yes. His flaws made him human. And in a
time of revolution, being human was a safer bet
than being divine. He eventually married her.
Right. He did in 1869 when he thought he was
dying of an illness, but it was a morganatic
marriage. What does that mean? Morganatic? It
means it's a valid marriage in the eyes of the
church, but she does not become queen, she doesn't
get the royal title, and any children they have
cannot inherit the throne. It was his way of
protecting the dynasty while satisfying his conscience.
So let's look at his final years. Rome is the
capital. The country is united. What does he
do with his time? He actually fades into the
background. His role in day -to -day governing
dwindles. And paradoxically, this is one of his
greatest contributions. How so? Because he wasn't
interested in micromanaging, he preferred hunting
at his lodge in the Alps. The power shifted from
the crown to the parliament. The constitution
technically said ministers answered to the king.
But because Victor Emmanuel let them be, they
started answering the parliament. He allowed
the seeds of parliamentary democracy to grow,
largely because he had other hobbies. That is
hilarious. His laziness saved democracy. Laziness,
or perhaps just a clear understanding of his
own limitations. He knew he wasn't a policy wonk,
so he let the wonks run the country. He dies
in 1878. In Rome. And there is a final dramatic
scene with the church. As he is dying, Pope Pius
X, who had been his enemy for decades, who had
excommunicated him, sends envoys. The excommunication
is reversed. Really? After all that? Yes. The
Pope allowed him to receive last rites. It was
a moment of reconciliation at the very end. The
Pope reportedly said something along the lines
of, he died as a Christian and a king. And the
burial. This was a major symbolic decision. The
Savoy kings were traditionally buried in the
Superga Basilica in Turin. It's this beautiful
church on a hill. His family was there. But the
government decided to bury Victor Emmanuel II
in the Pantheon in Rome. In the ancient Roman
temple. Exactly. It was the final claim on Rome.
Here lies the father of the fatherland in the
heart of the ancient empire. It was a message
to the pope and to the world. We are here and
we aren't leaving. So let's circle back to our
mission statement. We started with two versions
of the man. The dishonest imbecile described
by the British and the father of the fatherland
on the monument. After all this, where do you
land? I think he was both. Look, he wasn't an
intellectual giant. He certainly wasn't a saint.
He was rough. He was cunning. And yes, he was
opportunistic. He told lies when it suited him.
If you were looking for a philosopher king, he
wasn't it. But he had the one quality that matters
most in a crisis. He didn't quit. Think about
1849. Anyone else would have crumbled. Think
about 1859 after the betrayal at Villafranca.
He swallowed his pride and kept it going. He
was the anchor. That's the perfect metaphor.
Cavour was the sail. He provided the movement,
the direction. Garibaldi was the wind -wild,
unpredictable force. But Victor Emmanuel was
the heavy anchor. Without his legitimacy, without
the royal army, Garibaldi's revolution might
have turned into anarchy or a civil war. Cavour's
diplomacy might have had no teeth. Victor Emmanuel
provided the stability that allowed the Risorgimento
to solidify into a state. That is a really nuanced
way to look at it. He didn't have to be a genius.
He just had to be the king who stayed in the
saddle. Exactly. And sometimes showing up is
90 % of the job. So next time you see that giant
aggressive white monument in Rome, don't just
see a marble hero. See a guy who is stressed
out, fighting with his prime minister, juggling
mistresses, dodging excommunication, and somehow
managing to ride the wave of history to create
a nation. A flawed father, but a father nonetheless.
And here is a thought to leave you with. That
monument, the Altar della Patria, is often criticized
for being too big, too white, too pompous. It
stands out awkwardly against the ancient weathered
stones of Rome. But maybe that's perfect. Maybe
the monument matches the man, a bit loud, a bit
out of place, maybe trying a little too hard
to prove he belongs, but undeniably permanently
there. I love that image. It fits him perfectly.
Thanks for diving deep with us today. We will
catch you on the next one.