poleon. He had resorted to it to circumvent Napoleon in Italy. He now again invoked it to legitimate in the eyes of Europe, a transaction sure to be repugnant to it as well as to protect himself against the certain attack of Italian patriots against a cession of Sardinian soil. On Cavour's insistence, Article 1 of the treaty provided that the annexation should be effected without any constraint of the wishes of the populations.

As the ensuing plebiscites are at the same time the most familiar instances of a territorial cession subordinated to a popular vote, and the ones most bitterly attacked, it is advisable to give in some detail the previous history of the territories.

The two territories being contiguous, and the cession having been provided for in the same treaty and under the same stipulations, the custom of considering the two regions as identical and the plebiscites in them as one is perhaps natural. This collective treatment is, however, quite inaccurate. The two regions, different physically and racially, had had a widely differing history and, to contemporaries, the result of the votes which in the one instance aroused such widespread wonder and incredulity, in the other caused little surprise.

Savoy, though in history as often a part of Piedmont as of France, lies on the western slopes of the Alps. It is a mountainous region, the valleys opening on France and Switzerland. The duchy was composed of two divisions, Chambéry and Annecy. Each division had for its capital a city of the same name. Of the three provinces of Annecy, two, Chablais and Faucigny, bordering on Lake Geneva, had been included in the neutrality of Switzerland when, in 1815, Savoy had been given back to Piedmont.1 The chief commercial ties of these provinces were with Geneva, whereas the commercial ties of southern Savoy were with France. The people were French in race, however, as were those of the rest of the duchy. The devotion of the Savoyards to the church and its hierarchy was one of the chief characteristics of the duchy. It is said that there were more priests and monastic orders in Savoy than in the rest of Italy put together.

Savoy was thus divided from Piedmont by language, customs and economic 1 Whether this neutralization was in order to benefit Switzerland or Piedmont was in 1860 a matter of bitter controversy. The British government supported the Swiss claim that the neutralization was to protect Switzerland only. The French and Italian view was that the neutralization was at the request of Sardinia, and as a recompense by the Powers for the cession of a part of her territory to Geneva. The neutralization was desired because these two provinces were crossed by the Simplon and Great St. Bernard and had no means of military communication with Turin, which was thus without the means of defending from French aggression these two routes across her territory. By the provision of 1815 no armed troops of any Power were to be allowed to traverse the region. In case of Piedmont being involved in war, her troops were to withdraw and the Swiss troops were to police and defend the neutralized territory.

interests, and by the intensity of its devotion to the church, but a more vital element of difference than race, religion or language, was the conviction of the Savoyards that they were governed according to the political exigencies of the cabinet at Turin, rather than according to their own desires, needs and traditions.1 The Savoyards resented the fact that the administrative officials were Piedmontese, no Savoyard being allowed to rise to positions of importance, and that almost one half of the taxes were spent outside of the duchy. The "question of Savoy" was agitated in contemporary discussion as that of "another Ireland." This feeling naturally strengthened the sympathy with France in whose history the people of Savoy had played their part. There had always been a dormant French party in Savoy. The nationalist movement of 1848 had galvanized it into activity. At that time, the liberals, however, had been quieted by the concession of French as the official language and the conservatives had been restrained by distrust of republican France. The movement for annexation had again subsided until 1856, when events in France gave new life to the French party. The Savoyard conservatives were reassured by the change from republic to empire and had been estranged from Sardinia by Cavour's acts of 1850 when he caused the suppression of ecclesiastical privileges and closed the convents. All the journals, democratic and conservative, supported the movement, as did the great colonies of Savoyard expatriates in Paris, Lyons and Marseilles.

3

2

The events of 1859 by which Piedmont was expanded into the kingdom of Northern Italy intensified the feeling of isolation. Savoy, not being Italian, was reluctant to enter on a war for Italian nationality. The consequence to Savoy was the subject of constant discussion. Even the addition of Lombardy alarmed them. In July, 1859, after Villafranca, a petition. was drawn up and sent to Victor Emanuel asking what was to be the future of Savoy in this Italian national kingdom. The address became the starting point for propaganda which was strenuously opposed by the Sardinian

1 Saint Genis, vol. 3, p. 338; also Trésal, p. 330.

2 Francisque Grivaz, "Le plébiscite d'annexion de 1860 en Savoie et dans le comté de Nice," Revue générale de droit international public, vol. 3, p. 573.

3 On February 9, 1859, Marquis Léon Costa, a deputy from Savoy, speaking in the Sardinian Chamber had said: "Cette province sacrifie ses ressources pour annuler son influence déjà si minime dans l'Etat." Trésal, p. 136, quoting from Atti del parlamento subalpino, vie légis. 2nd session, p. 332. The Roman exile, Mamiani, said that Savoy felt abandoned as Ariadne on the cliffs of Naxos. Saint Genis, vol. 3, p. 339.

* " Sire . . . les actes émanés de votre gouvernment, les bases de la paix qui a été signée, proclament la fondation d'une nationalité italienne, nettement dessinée par les Alpes ainsi que par le langage, les mœurs et la race de ceux qui doivent en faire partie.- Ces désignations, Sire, excluent la Savoie. La Savoie n'est pas italienne, elle ne peut pas l'être, quel est donc l'avenir qui lui est reservée?" Bourgeois, "L'Annexion de la Savoie à la France," Revue générale de droit international public, vol. 3, p. 680; Trésal, p. 155; Saint Genis, p. 342.

government.1 To the alarm at the prospect of loss of political importance was added distrust of Cavour's further policy towards the church.2

On the other hand the liberals, supporters of the French union in 1848 were now in favor of union with Italy, which, under Cavour and the revolutionary leaders, was far more promising than the Empire with its cultivation of the clericals.3 Stirred to action by the growing rumors of negotiations for cession, in the last month of 1859 the liberals organized. Their program was for a union with Switzerland, if union with Sardinia was impossible, or, if union with Switzerland could not be managed, then for an independent duchy under a liberal prince. They held a demonstration on January 29, 1860, when a crowd numbering, according to the sympathies of the historian, from 400 to 3,000, met at Chambéry and swore allegiance to Victor Emanuel and to the union.

Such appear to be the facts as to race, language and public opinion in Savoy at the opening of the year 1860. The city and county of Nice were in a far different situation. It had had a history as varied as that of any border city. In the early days it had been a free city and in alliance with the several Italian cities of its vicinity. Later, to escape the covetous hand of the Counts of Provence it had placed itself under the protection of the Counts of Savoy. Except for the period of annexation to the first French Republic, it had followed their fortunes and, with the setting up of the Kingdom of Sardinia under the Savoyard princes, Nice became part of that kingdom. Yet though its history had been varied there is little suggestion that Nice was anything but Italian and it is probably this fact which led Napoleon, in his first public intimation of the French claim to the two regions, to base it not on nationality, even though in Savoy he had a clean case, but on the claim of balance of power and natural limits. There is some mention of a French party in Nice, of which Cavour made the most in his defense, but it is not convincing.

1 The clerical Courrier des Alpes was suspended for contending that as the people of Central Italy had voted for Piedmont, the Savoyards were entitled to vote on their own fate. Trésal, p. 155.

2 In the elections of 1857, Savoy with few exceptions had gone solidly clerical. Cavour, writing of his passage through Savoy on his way to Plombières in 1858 says, “Nobody hissed me on the streets, I can't expect more." Translated from Chiala, vol. 6, p. 251, Cavour to Santa Rosa, July 13, 1858.

3 The Savoyard liberals wrote lively brochures saying that France was not the France of 1789, but the France of the Capucins and the Chouans, "Les intérêts de la liberté priment les intérêts de la nationalité. Ubi libertas ibi patria." Saint Genis, vol. 3, p. 346.

4 The Gazette de Savoie, anti-separatist, puts it at 3,000. Parliamentary Papers [2624], p. 20. Grivaz credits this statement. Saint Genis puts the number at 400-500, p. 352; Trésal, p. 165, appears to credit the smaller figure.

5 Cf. ante, pp. 43-45.

Although there had been persistent rumors as to a cession, the first public intimation of the claim of France was given by Napoleon in his address on the opening of the legislative chambers on March 1, 1860.1 The speech aroused the apprehension of Great Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria. Except for France herself there was not a court in Europe which did not feel itself threatened by the transfer. Each feared that Napoleon was planning to follow the footsteps of his uncle. If claims to the slopes of the Alps were to be reasserted, why not also to Belgium and the Rhine? This fear was not lessened by the fact that the cession would give France control of the passes.

Switzerland, already alarmed at the growth of the new Italian kingdom, was immediately concerned with the effect of the cession on the neutralized provinces. Napoleon had at first promised these provinces to Switzerland. At once there came from Savoy a vigorous protest against such dismemberment, a protest carried to Napoleon by a delegation of fifty-five provincial and municipal councillors of Savoy. This was made use of by Napoleon as an excuse to abandon the idea. Napoleon's change of policy was made the subject of many and repeated protests by the Swiss Government which thereupon insisted that the people of Northern Savoy be allowed to vote on the alternative of union with Switzerland. To support this demand, petitions with numerous signatures, whether real or false is contested, were drawn up in the ninety-nine communes of Faucigny and Chablais, asking for the opportunity to vote for such a union. It is asserted that Cavour promoted the movement in order to alarm the party for unity and force a vote for France, rather than be disrupted.*

3

The Swiss movement was intimately bound up with the economic needs of the northern provinces which depended on freedom of trade with Geneva. France understood the importance of this question of a tariff and on March 11, definitely promised that there should be instituted a trade zone with Geneva.

The Treaty of Turin was finally signed on March 24. The presence in the treaty of the clause conditioning the cession on the popular consent is usually credited to Napoleon; it is not strange considering his devotion to

1 Cf. Documents, post, p. 538. From the correspondence between Russell and Cowley it is clear that England as well as the other European Powers had for months been fearful of such a claim.

2 As these councils had just been renewed within three months, their attitude towards annexation to France should give some indication of public opinion. It must be remembered, however, that they had been elected not by manhood suffrage but on a tax-paying qualification of five francs annually in the rural communes and a proportionate rate in the towns. Documents, post, p. 552.

4 Saint Genis, p. 354.

the principle. It appears, however, that in this instance Napoleon, though giving assurances to the Powers that no constraint would be used, was actually opposed to the presence of the stipulation in the treaty. The reason for this, it has been suggested, was that Russia's acquiescence could be counted on only if there were no mention of a popular vote, and Napoleon needed Russia's support.2 Certainly in the official announcement of the signing of the treaty in the Moniteur no mention is made of the vote, nor is it referred to in the Senatus Consulte of Union. It is apparent that this clause was inserted and insisted on by Cavour.*

3

The treaty had utterly disregarded the claims of the Swiss Government and of the inhabitants of Northern Savoy. There was to be no third alternative to the vote for France or Sardinia. The only protection to Swiss interests was the clause perpetuating the neutrality of the Northern provinces. The only protection of the minority was the clause of option in Article 6, by which those wishing to preserve Sardinian citizenship might have a year's time in which to remove themselves and their property to Sardinia.

The treaty left the method of the vote to an agreement between the two sovereigns. Napoleon, yielding the point of popular consultation, next appears to have made an effort to have the vote taken not by universal suffrage but by the provisional or municipal councils already in existence. This was likewise the desire of the leaders of the French party in Savoy. This is, at any rate, the statement of Grivaz who gives authority. He adds that it was on the demand of the people themselves, presented to the Emperor on April 1, that the governments, with common accord, adopted universal suffrage. Cowley, however, writing to Russell from Paris on April 6, says that the Emperor had proposed universal suffrage to the King.

5

1 In transmitting the speech of March 1 to the French representatives abroad, Thouvenel said, "I hasten to add that the government of the Emperor has no wish to hold the guarantees which it demands except with the free assent of the King of Sardinia and of the populations. The cession, therefore, which will be made to it will remain exempt from all violence and from all constraint." From a translation in British Parliamentary Papers, Affairs of Italy, 1860, vol. 67 [2656], p. 5, March 13.

2 Grivaz in Revue générale de droit international public, vol. 3, p. 579.

3 Documents, post, p. 619.

4 Cf. Cavour's speech in the Chamber of Deputies. Documents, post, p. 611.

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5 Grivaz, in Revue générale de droit international public, vol. 3, p. 578, cites the Journal des débats of March 16, 1860 and the Courrier des Alpes to further substantiate his statement. He repeats the following quotation taken from Chiala, vol. 4, p. lii, from an inspired article in Le constitutionnel of March 30 regarding plebiscites: un tel principe (la souveraineté du peuple) pourrait devenir pour l'Europe, par une fausse extension, la cause de troubles et de dangers incessants. Le suffrage universel peut s'appliquer seulement à l'intérieur du pays, mais non servir à modifier l'exercice de la souveraineté dans les rapports avec l'étranger, ni pour un accroissement de territoire."

6 Chiala, vol. 4, p. 1xxx. Cavour to E. d'Azeglio, April 6, 1860. Ibid, vol. 3, p. 35. Thayer quotes Bianchi La politique du comte de Cavour, p. 342, "cependant nous avons pu,