Revolutions - 7.17- The Five Days of Milan

Episode Date: November 26, 2017

In March 1848, both Milan and Venice revolted against Austrian rule.  Order the Storm Before The Storm: http://thestormbeforethestorm.com West Coast Tour: http://thestormbeforethestorm.com/tour

And welcome to revolutions. Episode 7.17, the Five Days of Milan. So over the past three episodes, we have covered what happened after news spread of France's February Revolution of 1848. The answer? The March revolutions of 1848 across Central Europe. But as we've now seen, it was not merely news of the fall of the July monarchy that kick started the revolutions. This news had to be joined by the even more sensational news, the fall of Metternich. Metternich had been around for 40 years, and his name laid like a great heavy winter blanket across Europe. When that blanket was removed, it was springtime of the peoples.

In Hungary, the fall of Metternich launched a struggle for independence. In Germany, it was a struggle for unification. Well, meanwhile, in Italy, those two forces combined. The dream in Italy was both liberation and unification, and the events in the Kingdom of Lumberty, Venetia, in the third week of March 1848, would begin the first Italian war of independence. Now, as we saw back in episode 7.10, the Italians had thrown the first insurrectionary rocks of 1848. In Austrian-controlled Milan, this had been that New Year's resolution by the citizens to deny Vienna revenue from the tobacco tax by having everyone simultaneously quit smoking. The idea was to use their financial leverage to extract political and administrative concessions from the imperial government. Because remember, despite making up one-sixth of the empire's population, the kingdom of Lumberty-Vinicia contributed fully one-third of the empire's tax revenue.

But though the brief resistance to the tobacco tax was broken by the Imperial Army, led by old field marshal Redetsky, a rebellion on the island of Sicily just a few weeks later led to calls for a constitution up and down the peninsula, felling the absolutist governments of Italy like Dominoes. This all culminated at the end of February and beginning of March with the announcements of constitutions for both the Kingdom of Piedmont, Sardinia, and the papal states. Watching this unfold, field marshal Radetsky suspected war was coming, and he petitioned Vienna constantly for more men and money and guns. And that was before Paris exploded, and obviously before Vienna exploded. When news from France arrived in Milan, it set off a buzz among the liberals and radicals and nationalists inside the city. Most of them still maintained some kind of connection to the old secret revolutionary networks

that always seemed to flourish so well in Italy. Through these networks, the Milanese took the news from France as their cue to start planning something. Though what that something was is anyone's guess because it was all soon overtaken by events in Vienna. As we saw in episode 7.14, Vienna went into revolt on March the 13th, and by the end of the day, Metternich had been forced to resign after 40 years in power. Milan is about 550 miles from Vienna, and so it took a few days for news to reach the city, but by all accounts, it seemed to have reached Milan on March the 17th. The Austrian officials there tried to bury this incredible news,

but plenty of Milanese had their own direct lines of communications with fellow Italians in the imperial capital, relatives and friends or business colleagues, and word was soon everywhere that Mernick had fallen to a mob. He was also reported that the emperor had allowed the people of Vienna to form a civilian civic guard. So at various and sundry meetings of secret conspirators on the night of March the 17th, the big question was, do we take advantage of this explosive news and go on the offensive, or do we sit back and wait to see how this all plays out without risking too much too soon? The final decision seemed to have been a compromise between actively launching an armed revolt right then and there and passively doing nothing. They would instead stage a peaceful demonstration and present a list of demands to the Austrian officials of the city.

And though this was meant to be peaceful, almost everyone took the precaution of digging up whatever guns and ammunition they had squirled away. And for most of them, this meant literally digging, as the most common hiding place for. their secret guns was buried in garden plots. So on the morning of March the 18th, 1848, a huge crowd started gathering near the center of town preparing to march on the royal palace, which the Austrians had taken over as the seat of imperial government. This crowd soon numbered 15,000 men, with at least an equal number of women lining the streets and hanging out of windows along the route to cheer them on. And like a spontaneous bloom of flowers, the green, white, and red tri-color that had been adopted as the national colors of Italy was suddenly everywhere,

on flags, sashes and cockades, all of which, like the guns, had been stashed until they were needed. Also among these patriotic nationalist symbols were plenty of pictures of the beloved Pope Pius the 9th, who everyone still believed was a liberal nationalist just like they were. He had recently granted the papal states a secular constitution and allowed Rome to form a civic guard. And though he had also given a speech cautioning against war with Austria, he had memorably ended it with the phrase, O Lord, bless Italy. The people of Milan certainly had every reason to believe they had both the temporal and spiritual power of the church on their side. The Archbishop of Milan signaled his sympathy and support for the planned demonstration, and at least a hundred priests participated

not just in the March on the morning of March the 18th, but in the fighting to come. But with so much being improvised on the fly, less than 24 hours has passed between the arrival of news from Vienna and this planned demonstration, there was not really a discernible leader of the demonstration. Instead, the grassroots revolutionaries of Milan drafted a leader and more or less forced him to lead the march on the royal palace. Batman was the Podesta of Milan, or mayor of Milan, an eminent local dignitary named Gabriel Kazati. The highest-ranking Italian in Milan, Cassati had been mayor since 1837 and had always had a good relationship with both the Italian citizens and their Austrian overlords. By disposition, a patriotic constitutional monarchist, Kazati was a practical politician, and by 1848 had pretty well hedged his family's bets. One son was studying at an Imperial University in Innsbruck, probably as a precursor to entering Imperial Service, while another son was an officer in the army of Piedmont Sardinia.

On the morning of the 18th, Kazati was meeting with members of the city's municipal council at the city hall when he heard shouts coming from the streets, long live Italy, and more ominously, death to the Germans. When representatives of this growing crowd told Kazati to lead the planned march, he could not say no. I mean, God knows what would have happened had he said no. So donning a black suit and a green, white, and red boutanier, he led the 15,000 marchers to the royal palace. The demands of the marchers was for the moment pretty limited. They wanted their own civic guard to take over policing the city, and they wanted an end to censorship. These were demands they thought eminently reasonable, as they went no further than what the emperor had already granted the people of Vienna.

Through hasty negotiations, Kazati managed to work things out with the Austrian officials not to call for Field Marshal Radetsky and the army. Kazati assured the Austrians that, though intimidating, these marchers were peaceful, and calling in the Imperial Army would only inflame the situation and probably lead to a lot of unnecessary and uncontrollable violence. At the moment, the highest-ranking Austrian official was the vice-governor, And with hundreds of Italians now swarming his headquarters and thousands more outside, the vice governor went ahead and signed off on the creation of a civic guard and the abolition of censorship.

But to ensure that the Austrians did not renege on the deal, the crowd outside offered to act as the hospitable hosts of the vice governor for the foreseeable future. And by that I mean, they took him hostage. Without waiting for any further confirmation that their demands were now met, a group of demonstrators hurried off to the police armory and liberated the weapons they found there. Though, to their disappointment, there were only about 50 rifles. By this point, the main demonstration started breaking up. Kazati himself, having quote-unquote led the march, returned to the city hall.

But since that's where he went, would be volunteers for the new civic guard followed. They all wanted this to be kept under the umbrella of some kind of legitimate political authority, And pretty soon, about 2,000 members of the new Civic Guard were being enrolled. And plenty of those enrolled were old Carbonari members or current members of young Italy. They had been waiting a long time for just such an opportunity to legally organize and bear arms out in public. With all of this unfolding on the civilian side, Field Marshal Radetsky watched with frustrated impatience. Remember, he was of the theory that three days, of violence would lead to 30 years

of peace, and he was very annoyed that the army was being kept in their barracks while Milan was being taken over by a mob. Now, he had already punched the people of Milan on the nose once before during the tobacco riots back in January, and he was pretty myth that the Milanese had not learned

their lesson. So by the afternoon of March the 18th, field marshal Radetsky was ready, willing, and even eager to order his troops into battle. But the order did not come. It appears, however, that as soon as he heard the vice governor had been taken hostage, that Radetsky just took matters into his own hands.

Order soon went out for the 13,000-strong imperial garrison to prepare to pacify the city. Following standard imperial practice, the majority of this garrison was not Italian. As much as possible, local garrisons were composed of soldiers from other parts of the Hapsburg Empire, to prevent any kind of hesitation the army might have about firing on the local population. So that garrison in Budapest, I mentioned two episodes back, for example, well, they were mostly Italian. The garrison in Milan was composed of three groups, Hungarian cavalry, Croatian infantry, and Austrian artillery. That last, being another little bit of standard imperial policy, as the Habsbergs generally thought it best that only Austrians be trained in how to work the heavy guns. Now, the cross-national garrisoning was not universally followed, as we'll

see in a minute over in Venice, but still, it was definitely policy, and Redetsky ordered his troops out of their barracks to go occupy key buildings in the city, and they were not going to be too worried about shooting Italians. A handful of demonstrators had stayed behind at the royal palace to defend their claim, but they were driven off by the regular infantry without too much difficulty. This Croatian infantry also occupied the cathedral of Milan, and Radetsky ordered sharpshooters to take up positions on the roof, where they would be able to rain sniper fire down in the battles to come, never making much of a distinction between insurrectionaries and non-combatants. With the army fanning out, the peaceful demonstration in Milan turned into a violent insurrection.

The Milanese followed the tactics of their insurrectionary cousins in Paris and Berlin and Vienna. They barricaded the narrow streets of the inner city and occupied rooftops in the upper-story windows. But the barricades of Milan were famously amongst the most luxurious of all revolutionary barricades. With Italian patriotic fever affecting the wealthy nobles and merchants as much as the poor workers and students and artisans, The homes, shops, and warehouses owned by the upper classes were thrown open for the people to grab and use whatever they needed. So some of the barricades were made up of expensive furniture and sofas. At least one was built around a grand piano, and a third featured a vice regal chariot seized earlier in the day. Everyone joined in the construction.

Men, women, artisans, workers, professionals, even some clergy. Kids from the local orphanage were then used as messengers to keep everyone in contact with everyone else. And everywhere, the green, white, and red tricolor flew. When army patrols ran into the barricaded locals and the shootings started up, we get to officially mark the beginning of what is known as the five days of Milan. Radetsky hoped that his initial show of force and clear willingness to shoot at the locals would lead the leaders of the insurrection to agree to a negotiated scene. ceasefire. And if he had had his way, Kazati probably would have agreed to just such a ceasefire.

But while everyone in the city was united in their opposition to the Austrians, they were not united as to where they wanted this insurrection to go. So at some point, over the night of March the 18th and then into the morning of March the 19th, a small group of dedicated Republicans got together and formed a committee of defense. They hoped to thrust themselves into the leadership vacuum and just assume authority over the insurrection. The leading figure on this committee was Carlo Catanio. Catanio was a dedicated Republican who already suspected that those who had pushed for an aggressive response to news of Metternich's fall had done so because they were monarchists, hoping to draw the armies of Charles Albert across the border.

Now sure that Kazati was among those angling to have Lumberty annexed into the domains of the House of Savoy, Catania and the Committee of Defense sent their own note to Radetsky to spike the attempted ceasefire. They said, Kazati doesn't speak for the people of Milan. He might be willing to lay down his arms, but the people never would. But though a Republican, Katanio, was not an extremist Republican, and he counseled his friends on the committee who pressed to declare a republic right then and there, that that may feel good in the moment, but we will still need the support of the other crowned heads of Italy if we are going to expel the Austrians. We can't alienate them, at least not yet.

To this further end of Italian unity, the Committee of Defense also decided to never speak of Milan or the Milanese in their proclamations and demands. They would only ever speak. of Italy and the Italians. With the proposed ceasefire scotched, the next two days progressed with regular sporadic fighting, especially on the north end of the city center. With Radetsky unable to operate cavalry in the narrow streets, it was up to infantry patrols to try to break down the barricades and retake real estate. But these imperial troops faced all the same demoralizing things we've seen regular

infantry units face going all the way back to the revolution of 1830. random attacks and ambushes, barricades going up behind patrols, cutting them off from their comrades, heavy resistance at major barricades, and then just random attacks from rooftops and windows. And since the Milanese and surgeons had to ration their gunpowder, some of the rooftop attacks came from boiling water thrown out of windows. It all got pretty gruesome and bitter, and atrocities are reported on both sides. Captured Austrians were allegedly killed and their eyes were gouged out. And then there is an infamous story about a Hungarian soldier who coveted a woman's jewels,

but rather than messing around with trying to pry them off, he just hacked the hand off. The severed, but still jewel-covered hand, was later discovered in his pocket. Gross. So all through March the 19th and March the 20th, it was shouting, guns firing, bells, ringing, men and women screaming, fire starting, smoke rising, and no real respite for anyone on either side. By the end of the day on March the 20th, though, so after like three days of this, Rideski determined it was futile to try to break the barricades by frontal assault. He instead pulled all his troops out of the inner city and repositioned them on the old city walls to prevent

anyone from coming in or going out. The new plan was to wait for hunger. and thirst to do their work. After pulling back, Redetsky sent in another request for a ceasefire, this time asking for 15 days so he could get fresh orders from Vienna. But again, the answer came back, no. But recognizing Redetsky's new strategy for what it was, the barricaded Italians got innovative. Someone, somewhere in Milan, had a collection of small balloons, which the insurgents

fastened notes begging for help. Basically, they said, hey, if you're reading this, Milan has risen up on behalf of Italy. We are now under siege, so please come with men and supplies and do it quickly. Some of these balloons actually reached people who could help the people of Milan, but others just kept going. One made it all the way to Piedmont. Another was later found in Switzerland, long after the fighting had ended. But luckily for the Milanese, even without the balloons, the Italians and the surrounding communities were already taking matters into their own hands.

The inhabitants of Como, Monza, Brescia, and Cremona all rushed into their cities to overwhelm the local Austrian administrators and seize control of their municipalities. In Cremona, that included inducing the 4,000-man garrison to surrender without firing a shot. Aware that Milan was in fact now in desperate need of aid, these communities, either on their own initiative, or at the prompting of a random balloon, gathered up supplies, arms, and reinforcements, and they started converging on the outskirts of Milan. By March the 21st, so day four of the five days of Milan, a stalemate had set in. But the insurrectionary Italians were far from demoralized. In fact, though they were watching their rations dwindle, they had managed to expand

their arsenal by picking up guns and ammunition from dead or captured imperial troops. They had also captured some artillery pieces and were able to start knocking off the army barracks, culminating on the morning of the 21st when they captured both the main barracks and Radetsky's own residential palace. So though they were the besiegers rather than the besieged, it was really Radetsky and his imperial forces who were feeling the noose tightening. Now, I don't know how much Radetsky knew about what was happening elsewhere in central Europe, whether he knew about Budapest and Prague and even further afield if he knew about Berlin. But it was already clear that Vienna was in disarray, and no reinforcements were likely on the way. The old field marshal was also getting reports that the surrounding communities were rising up,

and then over in Piedmont, King Charles Albert was no doubt preparing some kind of operation in support of Milan. It was not a great position to find oneself, and Radetsky knew it. And indeed, in the kingdom of Piedmont Sardinia, the sensational news from Milan did get Charles Albert's attention. Now, just to get the timeline straight here, we are still just about two weeks removed from the king's promulgation of a constitution, and he formed his first constitutional ministry on March the 16th, so just two days before the uprising in Milan began. As soon as news of Metternich's fall and Milan's rise, reached to the United States. Turin, the king's new ministers pressed him to go to war.

Now, Charles Albert had, of course, been preparing for war. Over the winter, he had been steadily building up his army, and it now numbered somewhere north of 50,000, with the objective on paper at least, being 65,000. But even if he had wanted to hold off, Charles Albert was in no position to say no. If he tried to resist war now, he would probably face his own revolutionary upheaval. But more than that, he could see that this was a golden opportunity. The Austrians were in disarray. This might be his very best chance to expand his domains at their expense, and maybe even

unite Italy under the banner of the House of Savoy. So to this end, he sent a close confidant to Milan to sneak into the city and meet with leaders of the insurrection. This guy arrived over the night of March the 21st, 22nd, snuck in the city. into the city, and told the Milanese that the Piedmont army was ready to march, but the city had to call for the king's aid so that he would be able to justify his violation of Austrian territory to the other heads of Europe. This, of course, the Milanese were willing to do. Even staunch Republicans who did not want Risorgimento to go the way of unity under Piedmont knew that without the Piedmont

army, they were all doomed. And on that morning of March the 22nd, 1848, Kazati officially formed a provisional government, and Catania's Republican Committee of Defense put itself under the provisional government jurisdiction. But as it turns out, they did not need Charles Albert to liberate Milan. On that same morning, a group of insurgent fighters, mostly students and ex-Carbunari, had identified a gate at the east end of the city, the Portatosa, as ripe for a frontal assault. It was both easy for the Italians to access and hard for the Austrians to defend. So at 7 a.m. on the morning of March the 22nd, 1848, they launched an all-out attack,

coming at the thinly defended guardpost from all sides, firing from nearby windows and rooftops, and then barreling straight up the street, shielded by mobile barricades. By the afternoon, the beleaguered imperial defenders wavered to the point where a small, intrepid band of insurgents just rushed forward at full speed, crashed their way into the guardhouse, and took it over. The guardhouse captured, they then threw open the gate, and on the other side, they found a crowd of peasants and civilians and friends waiting with supplies and reinforcements. The capture of the Portetosa broke Rededsky's siege, and he knew it. He didn't have the forces to reseal the gate without leaving other parts of the line exposed, so recognizing defeat when he saw it,

Radetsky ordered his forces to evacuate Milan. His plan was to pull back to the great Austrian stronghold in northern Italy, the so-called quadrilateral that existed between their four major fortresses. These fortresses were at Verona, Pesquiera, Lignon, and, last but not least, our old friend, Mantua, still the key to northern Italy. As the Imperial Army pulled out of town, they bombarded Milan. as a final farewell. Though Radetsky told his gunners to avoid the cathedral and city hall and royal palace

and other important buildings because he planned on coming back. Milan, meanwhile, erupted in euphoria. They had liberated themselves from the Austrians at long last. The Porta Tosa Gate was renamed the Porta Vittoria. And if you go to Milan today, there is a huge column at the center of what is today a large square where the final battle was fought. dedicated to the memory of those who fought in the five days of Milan. But the story of Milan is just one half of the story of the insurrections in the Kingdom of Lombardy, Venetia.

The other half of the story was a simultaneous insurrection over in Venice that climaxed with the Declaration of a New Republic of Venice on that same fateful day of March the 22nd, 1848. Now, the particular chain of events in Venice, like in Milan, traced back to January of 1848. Because over the winter of 1847, 1848, various Italian leaders in Lombardy, Venetia, had mustered the audacity to actually present grievances to the Austrian authorities. Those authorities had not taken too kindly to this, and in Venice they arrested two leading agitators, Daniele Manin and Niccolo Tomaseo. Tomazio was a liberal nationalist born in 1802, who had spent his life as an author, journalist, and linguist whose writings had forced him in and out of exile.

By 1847, though, he was living in Venice and a fierce proponent of liberalizing the press laws, which landed him in hot water when he presented a petition for political reform that smacked of sedition. So he got tossed in jail for his trouble. But the really important person you need to know here is Danieli Manin. Manin was born in 1804 into an ethnically Jewish family that had converted to Catholicism. Something of a boy genius, Manin inhaled everything that came his way. He read all the latest in Enlightenment and proto-romantic literature and economics and political science, all at a very young age. He entered the University of Padua at the age of just 14 and graduated with a law degree at the age of 17.

Entering the profession of law, he continued his intellectual pursuits and was able to read and write Italian, French, German, English, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Clearly, a very promising prospect. He married into a rich Venetian noble family and then spent his life writing all through the 1820s and 1830s on topics as varied as the minutia of legal codes to a trililingual analysis of the old book of Enoch. But for our purposes here, the important thing to know is that Manin was a committed liberal, a committed Italian nationalist, and a committed Republican. As the economic crisis of the mid-1840s started loosening tongues across the Austrian Empire, Manin boldly presented a petition to a congregation of municipal leaders in Venice in December of 1847 that vaguely called for administrative reform.

When they brushed him aside, he came back on January the 7th, 1848, with a point-by-point petition that spelled out specific demands. Those demands included all the liberal greatest hits you're by now super familiar with, but the really seditious part was his call that echoed the call coming from the Hungarians. Manine said that Lumberty Venetia should be its own kingdom, not a mere province. They should govern themselves and be linked to the larger Habsburg Empire only through their shared sovereign. This was quite enough for the local Austrian officials, and on January the 19th, 1848, Manin was arrested and thrown in jail. But after being arrested, Manin was never brought up on charges, let alone prosecuted. He just sat in jail, while he was. repeated demands, both from him and supporters outside, that he either be tried or released,

were ignored. He never was tried. He never was released. So Manine just sat. And his case became something of a cause-celeb among Italian patriots in Venice. So just as in Milan, news of the fall of Mearnik reached Venice on March the 17th, 1848. Almost immediately, crowds flooded into St. Mark Square, waving the green, white, and red tricolor, and demanding loudly that the Austrian governor release Manin and Tomazzo. Now, the Austrian governor of Venice was not an Austrian at all, but rather a Hungarian named Count Palfi. But not content to wait for Count Palfi to draw up the release order, another mob marched over to the prison and just pushed their way in. vastly outnumbered, the guards prudently just stood off to one side as the Venetians opened Manin and Tomazio's cells.

But Manin, a stickler for the finer points of law, refused to leave until the head of the tribunal in charge of his imprisonment signed a release order. The angry Venetians helped the head of this tribunal sign the order. Manin and Tomazio were then carried through the streets of the city in triumph, with Manin and, really the great hero of the hour. So while the insurrection in Milan was sort of headless, Venice very much rallied around Manin, and he was more than willing to lead them. Then, just as in Milan, March the 18th, saw the beginning of violent clashes, although Venice never blew up into a full-blown shooting war.

Croat and Hungarian soldiers came down to St. Mark Square that morning to try to take down the various tri-colored flags and banners that had been put up, and they were surrounded by a jeering mob. With this mob now surrounding them, the soldiers just opened fire. Nine were killed, and another eight or nine were wounded. So with things getting out of control, Count Palfi and Manin met, and Palfi demanded Manin get control of the Venetians. Manin said, okay, but I can only do it if you allow me to form a civilian civic guard and then put them, not the army, in charge of maintaining order. Palfi at first refused, but then Manin apparently pulled out a pistol and said, if you don't order the formation of a civic guard, I'll lead the revolt myself. At least that's

one version of the story. The other version is that Palfi kept stalling, man, impatient to get started. Manin just unilaterally ordered the formation of a civic guard, that Palfi could just go ahead and sign off on after it already existed. But unlike in Milan, where open war broke out that night, in Venice, tensions remained just under the surface, and the next morning, March the 19th, further news arrived from Vienna that seemed to signal that the worst was already over. The emperor in Vienna had approved an imperial constitution. With a civic guard formed in a constitution on the way, it at least seemed to the Austrians that

there would be no further need for a Venetian insurrection. When Count Palfi read aloud the Emperor's Declaration, the one I quoted at the end of episode 7.14, the people cheered. They shouted, long live the Emperor, along with long live Italy. But over that night, the hopes and fears of the Venetians mixed together into something entirely less complacent. There was now reason to hope that with Vienna in crisis that this might be their opportunity, their great opportunity, for the Italians to seize the day and evict the Austrians. The Venetian leaders also were afraid that if they sat back and just let events run their course, that the Austrians might get it together, with retribution for the past few

days of Venetian insolence being the most likely outcome. Plus, by now, word was coming in that Milan was in the throes of a full-blown insurrection. So rather than wait, Manin as a very much, and the other leaders decided to seize the day, with Manine specifically pointing to patriotic contacts he had inside the Venetian naval yards, who were ready to defect to the Italians. So just again, as in Milan, the final sequence of events played out on March the 22nd, 1848. In Venice, things centered on that naval yard. The guy currently in charge of the yards was a particularly despised captain named Marinovich.

He was long hated by the 1,500 or so civilian workers who worked at the dockyards, as Marinovich never granted time-off requests, chronically underpaid them, refused to let them do side work to supplement their incomes, and didn't even let them rummage around in the naval surplus, like previous commanders had let them do. When the unrest in Venice broke out, Marinovich's life was immediately in danger, as the workers started looking for an opportunity for the captain to have himself an accident.

accident. This got to the point where on the night of March the 21st, he was escorted out of the building by a detachment of civic guard and deposited onto a ship bobbing in the harbor where he could spend the night. But foolishly, Marinovich decided to boldly return to work the next morning, and when he was spotted on the morning of the 22nd, he was surrounded by angry workers who beat him up and left him to die in a boat shack. This lynching at the naval yards led to the final showdown. Both the Civic Guard and the regular Imperial Army mobilized to go take control of the naval yards and restore order. The Civic Guard got there first, but even had the army moved quicker, it's doubtful they would have been able to hold the base. The Venice garrison had large contingents of Italian troops, and they simply refused to follow the order to mobilize.

Ripping the Habsburg Eagle off their hats and uniforms and replacing it with the green, white, and red tricolor, the Italians defected to Manine. With control of the city, transitioning now from Count Palfi to Manin, the Hungarian governor was put on extreme notice when a unit of civic guard took over some artillery in St. Mark's Square and turned it to face directly at the governor's palace, just in case, you know, he wasn't getting the point. So Palfi called the existing municipal council, which was made up mostly of old rich Venetian nobles to discuss what to do.

But out in St. Mark Square, Menin was already making the decision for them. In a grand speech, he declared that the Venetian Republic was reborn. Then, demands came into the governor's residence. You will withdraw all your non-Italian forces. You will surrender all sorts. You will leave behind all weapons, ammunition, and pay chests. You will do this, or else. Furious, but impotent.

Count Palfi resigned his guise. in favor of his second-in-command, who then governed the city for just a few hours, and by governed, I mean, prepared the particulars of the capitulation that finally came at 6.30 on the night of March the 22nd. The Austrians would withdraw. The Venetians were in control of the city, or what they were now calling alternatively either the Venetian Republic or the Republic of San Marco. The next morning, on March the 23rd, 1848, Daniela Manin was proclaimed president. But though the declaration of the Republic of San Marco was an auspicious moment in the history of Resorgimento,

March the 23rd saw an even more auspicious declaration. His preparations made, King Charles Albert of Piedmont Sardinia formally declared war on Austria and prepared to cross the Rubicon. Well, I mean, not literally the Rubicon, it was actually the Ticino. but it was figuratively the Rubicon. There would be no going back now. The first Italian War of Independence had begun. So as we've seen over this cycle of our last four episodes, these 10 days between March the 13th and March the 23rd, 1848, are insanely and simultaneously action-packed. Revolutionary eruptions are breaking out everywhere, and we have truly now entered the springtime of the peoples.

The genie is out of the bottle. So next week, we will begin our next cycle of episodes as we head back to France to start getting a handle on what all these revolutionary upheavals mean. How far is this all supposed to go? What will the end result be? Was this merely a political revolution, or would it include a social revolution? In France, this question would come up early in the elections for and the convening of the first government of the Second Republic. And many of those who had fought in the February Revolution suspected that once again they were about to be betrayed. I will leave you, though, this week with a reminder that though no longer available

for pre-order, the storm before the storm, the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic is available for sale everywhere right now. I am very pleased to say that it's getting great reviews everywhere, and everyone seems to be enjoying it immensely, which makes me very, very happy. As we are now inofficial Saturn-All yet gift-buying season, I think you would all agree that the storm before the storm would make the perfect gift for your whole family, everyone in your family. We are also now just one week away from the West Coast swing of my book tour. So I'll give you one final reminder about it next week, but mark these dates. December the 4th at 7 p.m. at the Grove Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles.

December the 5th at Book Passage in San Francisco. that one is at 6 o'clock, then December the 6th at 730 at the downtown Powell's in Portland, Oregon, and then I will wrap it all up on December the 7th at 7 p.m. at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle. The East Coast and Midwest stops have been great so far, so West Coast, I hope to see you come out. And for those of you who have been pelting me on Twitter and via email that I'm not coming to your city. Yes, we are trying to work out some more events after New Year's.