Welcome to the deep dive. Today we're unlocking
a really fascinating somewhat forgotten 50 year
chapter of European history. We really are. It's
a very unique era. Yeah, we're talking about
the Kingdom of Lombardy Venetia. So if you're
a lifelong learner who's curious about Italian
history, the Austrian Empire, the Habsburgs or,
you know, just the general quirks of 19th century
Europe, this deep dive is custom tailored for
you. Absolutely. Because we are looking at a
period from 1815 to 1866 where northern Italy
was uniquely packaged together and ruled directly
by the Austrians. Right. And we really want to
uncover the surprising social reasons. that ultimately
led to its dramatic collapse. And to do that,
we're pulling from a really comprehensive Wikipedia
article detailing the Kingdom of Lombardy Venetia,
its creation at the Congress of Vienna, and the
whole Italian resorgimento. Right, the unification
of Italy. But to truly understand how this artificial
kingdom function and why it eventually failed,
we have to establish the foundation of what it
actually was. It was a normal country. No, not
at all. It wasn't an independent nation in the
way we think of one today. The kingdom of Lombardy
Venetia was officially a crown land of the Austrian
Empire. Okay, let's unpack this. Because the
way they actually built this kingdom is wild
to me. It was created by the Congress of Vienna
in 1815. Which was essentially the giant European
reset button right after the fall of Napoleon.
I mean, the map of Europe was a map. Exactly.
Napoleon had established his own kingdom of Italy
back in 1805. And once his empire collapsed,
there was this massive power vacuum in northern
Italy. Right. And the victorious powers needed
to redraw the borders. The Austrian House of
Habsburg -Lorraine historical rights to certain
territories there and the Congress of Vienna
recognized those rights. So they created this
new crown land to secure Austrian dominance in
the region. And to act as a buffer against any
future French expansion, right? Precisely. But
they didn't just take an existing unified country
and change the flag. They essentially stitched
together two completely different historically
distinct territories that had honestly very little
in common. It was an entirely artificial construction.
You had the former Lombard Duchy of Milan on
the western side and the former Republic of Venice
on the eastern side. Which is like a corporate
merger between two rival companies. That's a
great way to put it. And these two regions had
vastly different political cultures. The Duchy
of Milan was somewhat accustomed to this arrangement.
It had actually been ruled by the Habsburg Monarchy,
dating way back to 1714. So Milan is... at least
somewhat familiar with Austrian influence. But
Venice is a totally different story. A completely
different world. Venice had been a fiercely independent
maritime republic for a millennium. A thousand
years of independence. Right. They had only been
under Austrian rule intermittently, starting
with the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797. Which
was a brief period when Napoleon essentially
handed Venice to Austria as a diplomatic bargaining
chip. Right. Exactly. So you have Milan, which
is used to the Habsburgs, and Venice, which has
this deep ingrained tradition of fierce independence.
And suddenly they're told by diplomats in a faraway
room, congratulations, you are now one single
kingdom. Forced to get along. Yeah. And looking
at the sources, what's wild is that the Congress
of Vienna decided to use the term Lombardy to
describe this specific entity. Yes. The text
notes that this was the first time since the
year 1428 that the word Lombardy was officially
used to name a specific political entity. Rather
than just being a vague catch -all geographic
term for all of northern Italy. Right. It highlights
just how manufactured the whole enterprise was.
And the way it was managed from the top down.
perfectly reflects that artificial nature. The
kingdom was ruled in a personal union by the
Habsburg emperor of Austria. This brings us back
to that corporate merger analogy. The Austrian
emperor, starting with Francis I. Who ruled from
1815 until his death in 1835. Right, they were
the official kings. But they were sitting in
palaces in Vienna. They weren't walking the streets
of Milan. Or taking gondolas in Venice. They
were totally absentee CEOs. Far from it. Day
-to -day operations had to be handled by viceroys.
Regional managers? Essentially, yes. They were
appointed by the Imperial Court in Vienna and
they resided locally to deal with the administrative
headaches. Men like Heinrich von Belgard, Anton
Victor, and later Reiner Josef of Austria. But
even with a viceroy in place, they couldn't just
treat the territory as one... big happy region.
No, the cultural divide between Milan and Venice
was just too wide. They hated each other, basically.
Well, administratively, the kingdom was officially
split into two independent governments. They
called them Gubernian in German. You had the
government of Lombardy headquartered in Milan
and the government of Venetia headquartered in
Venice. And then they subdivided those two massive
governments even further into local provinces.
Lombardy had provinces like Milan, Como, Bergamo,
Brescia and Pavia. While Venetia was broken down
into Venice, Verona, Padua, Vicenza and several
others. The structural blueprint for those provinces
is really telling. The sources note that these
subdivisions roughly mirrored the old departments
that Napoleon had set up. So essentially, the
Austrians didn't reinvent the wheel. They just
took the bureaucratic zones Napoleon had already
drawn up and slapped an Austrian label on them.
Very pragmatic. Pragmatism really defined their
early approach. especially when we look at the
reality of the people actually living inside
these newly drawn borders. Yeah, the demographics
are wild. We have incredibly precise data on
this, thanks to an ethnographic map issued by
the Imperial and Royal Administration of Statistics
in 1855. Created by a statistician named Karl
von Cernig -Chirnhausen. Correct. I was looking
at this 1855 census data in the source, and it
just blew my mind. We are talking about a kingdom
of roughly five million people, right? Exactly.
5 ,024 ,117 people, according to Trinic Cernhuysen's
meticulous records. Down to the exact person.
That is very Austrian. It is. And the ethnic
breakdown is absolutely vital to understanding
the social tensions that eventually tore the
kingdom apart. Because out of those 5 million
people, an overwhelming 4 .6 million were Italians.
or Lombard Venetians. You also had a few minority
groups. Right. Roughly 350 ,000 Friulians, some
Slovenians, a small Jewish population, and about
12 ,000 Germans. Specifically, Cymbrians and
Venetia. Yes. So if you are the Austrian emperor
sitting in Vienna, you are ruling over a kingdom
of five million people. And statistically speaking,
basically none of them are actually Austrian.
What's fascinating here is how the Austrian authorities
chose to handle that stark demographic reality.
Particularly when it came to language. Because
history is full of occupying empires that immediately
forced the conquered population to speak the
imperial language. To assimilate them by force.
Exactly, but the Austrians didn't do that. They
really didn't. The Austrians actually didn't
care if you used Italian in local court or to
pay your taxes. They were surprisingly tolerant
on a civilian level. The administration used
Italian for both internal and external communications.
The dominant position of the Italian language
in local politics, in finance, and in the judicial
system was openly accepted by the Austrian officials.
They even printed the official state newspaper
of the kingdom in Italian. The Gazette di Milano.
Right, and the people actually working in these
local government offices, they were mostly Italian.
The sources show that only about 10 % of the
civil servants were recruited from other regions
of the Austrian Empire. And some of those were
bilingual Italian German speakers from the neighboring
county of Tyrol. So on a day -to -day civilian
level, the government looked and sounded like
the local population. But we have to address
the massive caveat to this tolerance, because
it was very strictly compartmentalized. Right.
While the pen was Italian, the sword was very
much German. The German language remained the
strict, uncompromising command language of the
military. And it wasn't just the regular army
soldiers, the top police officials, specifically
The secret police, keeping a paranoid eye on
everything, were native German speakers. Imported
directly from other parts of the empire. Furthermore,
the absolute highest governorships were exclusively
reserved for Austrian aristocrats. So there was
a very clear, impenetrable glass ceiling for
the locals. Yeah. I want you to put yourself
in those shoes for a moment. Consider what it
would feel like to live in a state where your
native language is perfectly fine for mundane
things. You can read the news? You can file your
taxes? You can argue a contract dispute in court
in Italian? but the heavily armed soldiers marching
through your city square, the military commanders
making strategic decisions, and the secret police
officers eyeing you suspiciously from the corner.
They all speak a foreign tongue. And the executives
making the ultimate rules are foreign aristocrats.
It creates a profound underlying psychological
tension. It is a total recipe for resentment,
which perfectly sets up the social dynamics we
mentioned at the start. OK, here's where it gets
really interesting, because the source material
includes the historical memoirs of an Austrian
general named Karl von Schoenhals. A fascinating
primary source. And he points out a massive historical
irony about who actually supported this Austrian
occupation and who actively plotted to destroy
it. General von Schoenhals wrote quite candidly
about the social reality on the ground during
the 1840s. If you were to guess, you might assume
the wealthy native Italian elites were the ones
collaborating with the Austrians. To maintain
their status, right. while the oppressed lower
and middle classes revolted. But the reality
was the exact opposite. Yes. The Austrian administration
actually enjoyed the support of the rural population
and, crucially, the local middle class. And the
reason why is entirely based on bureaucracy.
The Austrians implemented a strict meritocracy
for their civil administration. If you wanted
a good stable, well -paying job managing the
kingdom, you had to have a university degree.
And the local middle class was more than willing
to meet that requirement. They flocked to the
local universities, specifically the historic
universities of Pavia and Padua. They studied
hard, got their degrees, and stepped into these
comfortable, influential, administrative careers.
The system was predictable, and it was working
for them. But the local Italian aristocrats,
they were absolutely furious. They were completely
alienated from the levers of power. You see,
these aristocratic families had a deeply ingrained
cultural tradition of completely rejecting university
education. In their view, formal schooling was
for commoners who needed to work for a living.
Their power, their leadership roles, and their
entire position in society had always been based
entirely on their family background. On their
noble bloodlines. Exactly. But the Austrians
sitting in Vienna didn't care about their local
bloodlines. The Austrian government actively
mistrusted these Italian aristocrats and point
blank refused to give them high government offices.
Unless they had the proper educational credentials.
So suddenly these incredibly wealthy, proud aristocrats
find themselves locked out of managing their
own society simply because they felt they were
too good to go to college. If we connect this
to the bigger picture, this is a profound realization
about the mechanics of revolution. Deprived of
their traditional leadership roles, this uneducated
aristocratic class became the primary engine
driving the Risoramento. the movement for Italian
unification. They threw their vast wealth, their
societal influence and their bitter anger behind
the wars of independence against the Austrians.
It is such a human, petty and yet massively consequential
reason for supporting a revolution. It really
is. It wasn't just about the noble concept of
a unified Italian peninsula. It was you won't
let me be a regional manager because I didn't
go to the University of Pavia. Fine. I'll fund
a massive rebellion. I'll burn your bureaucracy
to the ground. Exactly. It truly changes the
lens through which we view these historical events.
And that aristocratic rebellion was gaining unstoppable
momentum throughout the 1830s and 40s. Let's
set the scene for when things finally boil over.
We are moving into the late 1830s. The first
Austrian king, Francis I, has died. And his son,
King Ferdinand I, takes over. In 1838, Ferdinand
travels to Milan and actually becomes the last
king to be crowned with the historic iron crown
of Lombardy. It was a grand spectacle meant to
project stability. But despite the fancy crowns
and the functional Italian speaking bureaucracy
we just talked about, the risorgimento movement
was reaching a fever pitch. The tension was palpable
and 1848 becomes the year the dam finally breaks.
This is known historically as the year of revolutions
across Europe. From Paris to Vienna, citizens
were rising up against monarchies. And Lombardy
Venetia was right at the violent center of it.
March 22nd, 1848. This is a legendary date in
Italian history. It is known as the Five Days
of Milan. The tension snaps, and a massive popular
revolution erupts in the streets. We are talking
about civilians throwing up barricades, intense
street -to -street fighting, and a population
that simply refused to be governed by Vienna
anymore. The uprising was so fierce and the sheer
volume of angry citizens so overwhelming that
the heavily armed Austrian military was literally
forced to flee the capital city. The locals immediately
set up the Governo Provisorio de la Lombardia.
The Lombardy Provisional Government. The psychological
impact of seeing the Austrian army retreat was
immense and the spark caught instantly across
the kingdom. The very next day on March 23rd
The citizens of Venice rose up against their
Austrian garrisons as well. Forming their own
provisional government. For a brief shining moment
in the spring of 1848, it looked like the kingdom
of Lombardy Venetia was entirely finished. But
the Austrian Empire wasn't going to let their
most valuable crown lands slip away that easily.
They strike back, and they strike back hard.
The military response was swift, methodical,
and brutal. It was led by the infamous Austrian
Field Marshal Joseph Radecki. He didn't panic
when Milan and Venice fell. No, he retreated,
reorganized his forces and prepared for a counteroffensive.
Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Sardinia, a penitent
Italian state, sent troops to help the revolutionaries
in Lombardy. Radecki met those Sardinian troops
at the Battle of Costosa in July 1848. And Radecki
absolutely crushes them. On July 24th and 25th,
the Sardinian army is decisively defeated. With
their military backup completely shattered, the
provisional governments in the cities just couldn't
hold out against a professional imperial army.
By August 6th, 1848, Radecki marches his troops
right back into Milan. Venice manages to hold
out a bit longer, relying on its lagoon for defense.
But by August 1849, Radecki recaptures Venice
as well. Austrian rule is completely heavily
restored. The revolutions were crushed, but the
political landscape back in Vienna had fundamentally
changed during the chaos. King Ferdinand I had
been forced to abdicate due to the wider 1848
revolutions rocking the empire. And his young
nephew, Emperor Franz Joseph I, took the throne.
Franz Joseph would end up ruling over the kingdom
of Lombardy Venetia for the remainder of its
existence. And he realizes pretty quickly that
the old way of managing this territory, having
an absentee king and a rotating cast of viceroys,
isn't going to work anymore. He completely abolishes
the title of viceroy. He replaces it with a more
militaristic governor general role. Initially,
that job goes to the man who just conquered the
territory field, Marshal Rudetsky. But when Rudetsky
retires in 1857, Franz Josef hands the job to
his own younger brother, Ferdinand Maximilian.
Maximilian serves as governor general in Milan
from 1857 to 1859. And as a fascinating historical
side note, this is the very same Maximilian who
a few years later notoriously accepts a crown
from Napoleon III to become the emperor of Mexico.
A geopolitical adventure that ends quite tragically
for him in front of a firing squad. It is wild
how interconnected these historical figures are.
But before his doomed Mexican adventure, Maximilian
is sitting in Milan trying to hold this patchwork
kingdom together. He actually tried to be somewhat
moderate and reform minded, but it was too little
too late. The unraveling of the kingdom had already
begun. The 1850s are really the beginning of
the end. The fatal blow to the kingdom comes
in 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence.
The Austrians suffer a massive catastrophic defeat
at the Battle of Sulferino. The casualties were
so horrifying that it actually inspired the creation
of the International Red Cross. This defeat forces
Austria to the negotiating table. resulting in
the Treaty of Zurich. And this treaty essentially
takes a cleaver to the kingdom. Austria is forced
to cede almost all of the Lombardy region, everything
up to the Mencio River. They only manage to keep
the heavily fortified cities of Mantua and Piscera.
But here's the crazy diplomatic hot potato, so...
Austria doesn't just hand Lombardy over to the
Italians. No. Imperial pride and the complex
diplomacy of the era required a bit more theater.
Austria officially ceded Lombardy to the French
Emperor, Napoleon III, who had allied with the
Italians. Napoleon III then immediately turned
around and passed the territory to the Kingdom
of Sardinia. Which was acting as the embryonic
state driving Italian unification. So half the
kingdom vanishes overnight. Governor General
Maximilian is suddenly out of a job in Milan
and he is forced to pack his bags and retired
at Mermer Castle near Trieste. The Austrians
grab whatever administrative paperwork they can
carry and move the capital of whatever is left
of the kingdom to Venice. They manage to hold
on to Venetia as a rump state for another seven
years. But in 1866, the geopolitical winds shift
against them permanently. Austria finds itself
fighting a disastrous war against Prussia. The
Italians see an opportunity and launch the Third
Italian War of Independence simultaneously. Overwhelmed
and defeated on multiple fronts, the remaining
Austrian territories of Venetia and Mantua finally
fall. The end of the kingdom is finalized by
the 1866 Peace of Prague. But once again, we
get this incredibly quirky diplomatic loophole.
Even though Italy clearly won the territory,
Austria absolutely refuses to hand it directly
to them out of sheer stubborn imperial pride.
It is a remarkable historical detail. On October
19th, 1866, the territory of Venetia and Mantua
was formally transferred from Austria to France
again. And then France, playing the middleman,
immediately handed it over to Italy. It was a
transparent, face -saving measure for the Habsburgs.
A few days later, on October 21st and 22nd, a
plebiscite was held where the local population
voted, officially marking the Italian annexation.
And just like that, the 50 -year administrative
experiment known as the Kingdom of Lombardy Venetia
was officially erased from the map. Erased from
the map, but leaving a profound and complicated
legacy on the shape of modern Europe. So what
does this all mean? When we look back at the
sources we've explored today, we see a fascinating
50 -year window. We see an artificial kingdom
born from a peace treaty administered by a pragmatic
bureaucracy that respected the local language.
But was ultimately doomed by its own heavy -handed
military presence and its rigid social exclusivity.
It was a bureaucratic experiment that accidentally
fueled the very revolution that destroyed it.
It really was. This raises an important question,
a lingering thought for you to ponder as we wrap
up. We've seen how the Austrian refusal to give
uneducated aristocrats government jobs pushed
those elites to fund a revolution. But it makes
you wonder if the Austrian Habsburgs had just
compromised. What if they had built a few more
universities or simply lowered the educational
barrier for those wealthy aristocrats to keep
them happy? Would those elites have stayed loyal
to Vienna? And if they had, would Italy even
exist as a single unified country today? Or would
the map of modern Europe look entirely different?
It is the brilliant point and it completely changes
the way you look at the inevitable march of history.
Sometimes the map of the world hinges on a university
degree. It really does. Thank you so much for
joining us on this Deep Dive. We hope you learned
something new about the hidden quirks of 19th
century geopolitics. Until next time, keep exploring,
keep questioning, and keep learning.