23.2.4: Italy under Napoleon

Napoleon’s Conquest of Italy

At the end of the 18th century, Italy used here to refer to a number of separate Italian states as at the time sm Italy was not yet a unified state) found itself dominated by Austria while the dukes of Savoy (a mountainous region between Italy and France) had become kings of Sardinia by increasing their Italian possessions, which now included Sardinia and the north-western region of Piedmont. This situation was shaken in 1796, when the French Army of Italy under Napoleon invaded Italy with the aims of forcing the First Coalition to abandon Sardinia (where they had created an anti-revolutionary puppet-ruler) and forcing Austria to withdraw from Italy. Within only two weeks, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to sign an armistice. Napoleon then entered Milan, where he was welcomed as a liberator.

In 1797, Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio, by which the Republic of Venice was annexed to the Austrian state, dashing Italian nationalists’ hopes that it might become an independent state. This treaty forced Austria to recognize the existence of the Cisalpine Republic (made up of Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and small parts of Tuscany and Veneto) and the annexation of Piedmont by France. Napoleon conquered most of Italy in the name of the French Revolution by 1799. He consolidated old units and split up Austria’s holdings. He set up a series of new republics, complete with new codes of law and abolition of old feudal privileges. The Cisalpine Republic was centered on Milan. Genoa became a republic while its hinterland became the Ligurian Republic. The Roman Republic was formed out of the papal holdings while the pope himself was sent to France. The Neapolitan Republic was formed around Naples, but lasted only five months before the enemy forces of the Coalition recaptured it. All of these republics were France’s client states, some connected with France by personal union (with Napoleon as the common head of the states).

Even if some of these states were created by the French invasion and were just satellites of France, they sparked a nationalist movement. As all of these republics were imposed by an outside force, none had popular support in Italy, especially since the peasantry was alienated by Jacobin anti-clericalism. Even native republicans became disillusioned when they realized that the French expected them to be obedient satellites of Paris, which included frequent interference in local affairs and massive taxes. Return to the old feudal order was equally undesirable, so the republican movement would gradually establish its nationalist goals.

Location of Cisalpine Republic in 1799, Adolphus William Ward, The Cambridge Modern History Atlas, London: Cambridge University Press, 1912, Map 86.

Formally, the Cisalpine Republic was an independent state allied with France, but the treaty of alliance established the effective subalternity of the new republic to France. The French in fact had control over the local police and left an army consisting of 25,000 Frenchmen, financed by the republic.

The maps shows that the Cisalpine Republic was made up of Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, and small parts of Tuscany and Veneto, all of which are regions of modern-day northern Italy.The Italian Republic

Napoleon’s Italian Republic was the successor of the Cisalpine Republic, which changed its constitution to allow the French First Consul Napoleon to become its president. Sovereignty resided in three electoral colleges located in Milan, Bologna, and Brescia. All elected a commission of control and supreme rule called the Censorship, composed of twenty-one members and based in Cremona. The head of state was the president of the republic, Napoleon Bonaparte, elected for 10 years. The president had full executive powers, appointed the vice-president and the secretary of state, took legislative and diplomatic initiative, chose the ministers, public agents, ambassadors, and chiefs of the army, summoned the executive councils, and prepared the budget. The vice-president, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, acted for the president during his absence. The Legislative Council was a commission of at least 10 members appointed by the president for three years. The government comprised seven ministers. The parliament of the republic was a legislative body with limited powers. It was summoned by the president of the republic and could only approve or reject a law, the discussion reserved to a more restricted committee of 15 speakers.

The Kingdom of Italy

The Kingdom of Italy was established in 1805 when the Italian Republic became the Kingdom of Italy, with the same man (now styled Napoleon I) as King of Italy and the 24-year-old Eugène de Beauharnais (Napoleon’s stepson) as his viceroy. Napoleon’s title was Emperor of the French and King of Italy, implying the importance of the Italian Kingdom to his empire.

Although the earlier republican constitution was never formally abolished, a series of constitutional statutes completely altered it. The first declared Napoleon as king and established that his sons would succeed him, even if the French and the Italian crowns had to be separated after the Emperor’s death. The most important was the third, which proclaimed Napoleon as the head of state with full powers of government. The Consulta (a commission of eight members led by the president of the republic and in charge of foreign policy), Legislative Council, and Speakers were merged in a Council of State, whose opinions became only optional and not binding for the king. The Legislative Body, the old parliament, remained in theory, but was never summoned after 1805. The fourth statute, decided in 1806, indicated Beauharnais as the heir to the throne.

Originally, the Kingdom consisted of the territories of the Italian Republic: former Duchy of Milan, Duchy of Mantua, Duchy of Modena, the western part of the Republic of Venice, part of the Papal States in Romagna, and the province of Novara. Within the next several years, its territory shifted a number of times as the Kingdom served as a theater in Napoleon’s operations against Austria during the wars of the various coalitions. In practice, the Kingdom was a dependency of the French Empire.

After Napoleon abdicated both the thrones of France and Italy in 1814, Beauharnais surrendered and was exiled to Bavaria by the Austrians. The remains of the kingdom were eventually annexed by the Austrian Empire.

Attributions

• Italy under Napoleon
  • “Cisalpine Republic.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisalpine_Republic. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “History of Italy (1559–1814).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Italy_(1559%E2%80%931814). Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “History of Italy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Italy. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Italy_(Napoleonic). Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Italian Republic (Napoleonic).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Republic_(Napoleonic). Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Norditalien_und_Mittelitalien_1799.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Norditalien_und_Mittelitalien_1799.jpg. Wikimedia Commons Public domain.