History Against Neo-Bourbonist Myths

Written by Alberto Casirati

The article published by Giuseppe Chiellino in Il Sole 24 Ore on August 29, 2010, entitled “Italian Unification From the Southern Point of View: An Annexation Without a Declaration of War?”, once again, albeit gently, repeats several arguments that have no historical basis, but which have been used by those people who, for personal reasons, are taking advantage of the good faith of people who are unaware of the historical facts. They are trying to exploit the 150th anniversary of Italian unity by spreading false propaganda.

For the sake of historical truth, is necessary to remember that:

1) The arguments of the nostalgic Neo-Bourbonists completely ignores the general European and global framework of the nineteenth century, whose conditions made the national unification process necessary and inevitable.

2) Brigandage, which Neo-Bourbonists attribute to the “Piedmontese conquest”, was actually already well-established in the South two centuries prior. So much so that the first to put into practice an armed repression of banditry were the Bourbons themselves. Under Ferdinand I the Bourbon kingdom even relied on a foreigner: General Richard Church. Also during the reign of Joachim Murat, several decades before the expedition of the Thousand, brigandage was bitterly fought. The French colonel Charles Antoine Manhés is remembered for his violent and cruel methods. The French especially condemned the use of brigand bands by the local noble landowners under the Bourbons, who used the brigands to keep their peasants in a state of submission very similar to slavery. They were just “patriots”, I'm sure!

3) The much-vaunted “southern identity” has the same historical credibility as “Padania”: a fairy tale. It is enough to recall the hatred felt for the Bourbon domination by the Sicilians, who participated with thousands of casualties in the liberation of the island, supported in arms by the Garibaldian expedition.

4) The coffers of the Bourbon kingdom were well stocked, but at the expense of the people: reliable southern historians have long admitted the deplorable living conditions of most of the Bourbon subjects. Illiteracy prevailed and was well above the European average of that time (it is enough to recall, for example, that numerous city councilors of the province of Naples signed the minutes of the council with the help of wooden stamps). There was almost a complete absence of roads.

5) The Kingdom also lacked proper public education. Prof. Carmine Cimmino, the Neapolitan professor, summarized the subject: “The Bourbons lost the Kingdom by historical necessity: Francis I and Ferdinand II sought with a maniacal perseverance to shut the people of the South in a sort of giant bubble that isolated them from a world that was changing without end in sight. It thus happened that small groups of excellent men, engineers, architects and doctors reached high positions, but mass illiteracy reached high percentages, and the program of public primary schools was laughable. In the Battle of Volturno, the final battle, the Neapolitan soldiers covered themselves with glory, but few of them could read or write; all the Piedmontese soldiers, however, were able to read and write with relative ease. This fact alone would be sufficient to explain the collapse of the Kingdom. The logic of history is often more straightforward than you think.”

6) Angelo D’Orsi, professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Turin, points out that “the Southern Kingdom was a deeply depressed area and was at least a century and a half behind in development compared to the rest of Europe”; and Prof. Giuseppe Cacciatore, a Salernitan philosopher and member of the Accademia dei Lincei, echoed this: “No one can deny that the Bourbons were one of the worst contemporary European dynasties. They are the same ones who sent Neapolitan patriots to prison and to the gallows, and imposed oaths upon university professors before the bishops to obtain permission to teach.” Metternich predicted that the dynasty would die from an “infection” contracted during the riots of 1820-1821: the infection of fear.

7) Moreover, it is a historically established fact that the fortunes of the Bourbon Kingdom were entrusted to a “ruling” class composed mostly of corrupt and treacherous men, albeit with some notable exceptions. This was demonstrated by the sudden decomposition of the Kingdom after the landing of the Thousand at Marsala.

8) Like any human experience, even our Risorgimento had its dark moments, but there is no doubt that the Risorgimento set up a true opportunity for the development of the South. It is sufficient to remember how, only 86 years later, the people of the South voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Savoy monarchy in the 1947 plebiscite.

The claims of the “Southernists” today are therefore growing increasingly tiresome and less credible.