Sardinian officials still left in Savoy used their influence also for annexation, if one may judge by the action of Graglia, the royal commissioner of education, who wrote to the governor regent of Annecy begging him to instruct the people to give an enthusiastic endorsement to the union. It is said that the circular issued by the governor of Annecy, in order to reconcile the electors of Chablais and Faucigny, permitted them to substitute France et zone for the simple affirmative. Most of these circulars were intended to carry some suggestion that the vote was a mere form and the cession a foregone conclusion and yet they warned against staying from the polls on that account. The conservatives, through their deputation to Napoleon, had protested against a popular vote of any kind. When the proclamation reached them they were aghast at the news of the proposed adoption of manhood suffrage, and protested to Napoleon that they had not the time to work with the masses, that the syndics and the reds, who were well organized, would easily offset the new administration of Savoyard conservatives who would be without funds, arms, or time, and who lacked leaders of experience in directing propaganda. They returned at once from Paris and set about forming committees throughout Savoy to prepare for the vote. On April 12 the central committees which they had formed at Chambéry and Annecy sent circulars to all the syndics offering help in seconding the governor's efforts for a big vote for annexation and promised in particular to send French flags to all the communes where wanted, and urged union of all parties in support of annexation. Following this advice, in some places, notably in Tarentaise and Maurienne, the two parties fused and worked together for annexation. Not all the radicals were willing to give up their desire for the liberal Italian rule, however. The red newspaper, the Gazette de La Savoie, raged.

3

The great doubt was as to Chablais and Faucigny. The conservatives said it was necessary to place these provinces in a position where material interests would not be harmed by annexation to France. Though the Emperor had assured the Savoyard deputies that a zone would be granted, the Swiss agents were busily sowing doubts in the minds of the peasants as to the value of Napoleon's word, which was not yet embodied in official documents. In answer to the conservatives' plea to send an agent to counteract this, Napoleon sent Senator Laity to explain the French intentions as to the zone. He ar

1 Grivaz, op. cit., p. 582, gives the text.

2 Trésal, p. 258. Grivaz makes the same statement giving the article. No text of the original can be found. The Circular of the Intendent Regent of Faucigny, q. v. in Documents, post, p. 591, does not mention France et zone as a possible form of vote, though it gives assurance that the zone is included in the vote for France. This was unnecessary as the promise of the zone had been made previously to the vote.

rived on April 4 and with his suite travelled through Savoy until April 28, giving particular attention to Chablais and Faucigny. Everywhere he was received with the greatest enthusiasm.1 He was accompanied by a group of engineers to inspect the needs of the country, of which the Savoyard deputation to Paris had spoken, and to draw up projects on a grand scale for tunnelling the mountain passes as they had desired. This mission, with the many inducements which it offered for union with France,2 went far to counteract the Swiss propaganda, in spite of the Swiss money which was reported to be plentiful in the northern provinces.

3

The vote took place on the 22nd and 23rd of April. Contrary to the assertion commonly made, it appears that though French troops had been stationed in both Nice and Savoy, and had been constantly passing through on their way from Italy, where they had been kept some time after peace had been signed, the authorities had taken care to remove them before the voting. The vote is said to have taken place with enthusiasm. The electors of the country districts marched in procession, the syndic at the head, carrying French flags blessed by the priests, the procession beating drums and crying, "Vive la France. Vive l'Empereur." In the towns they marched by trades and fraternities. The women, too, made known as well as they could, their desire for the union. Trésal, commenting on the accounts in the journals of the day, says it is obvious that the vote was a tremendous ovation for France and that it was a religious as well as a patriotic vote. The Swiss party in the northern provinces made no sign. At Bonneville, a centre of Swiss agitation, the vote was without disturbance and particularly solemn.

On April 29 the Court of Appeal of Chambéry, whose duty it was to verify the votes of the whole of Savoy and to add them together, published the official result of the vote.5 130,533 had voted for union with France and only 235 against. 71 ballots were void. The soldier vote, counted separately, resulted in 6,033 votes for France, 282 against the change in sovereignty and 34 void. The anti-annexation party claimed that all abstentions should be counted as negative. It appears, however, that each commune kept 1 Trésal, p. 264.

2 For the arguments used by the French mission, see Cavour's speech before the Sardinian Chamber. Documents, post, pp. 440 et seq.

3 Saint Genis and Trésal agree than the Piedmontese soldiers were no longer in the country, and the Savoyard militia were alone charged with the keeping of order.

4 Trésal, p. 274.

5 Documents, post, pp. 427-8.

• The total population of Savoy in 1858 was 543,098. Of these 265,775 were males. Statistica del Regno d'Italia.

7 Trésal, p. 276. According to Saint Genis, this soldier vote was reported later and should be added to the official result.

a careful list of the reasons for abstention, whether through illness, absence, or unwillingness to vote.1

There is no case of a plebiscite more energetically attacked by writers than these votes of Savoy and Nice. The main indictment advanced against the votes of Savoy and Nice is the same, namely, that the vote was a mere form, the cession having been already determined on and the treaty signed. Grivaz, one of those attacking it at length, says that to say the cession depended on the vote is ridiculous for the treaty was signed on March 24 and all the journals spoke of the cession as inevitable. Pradier-Fodéré asks whether the two monarchs would have torn up the treaty had the vote been negative, and answers No. Stoerk says it is evident that the cession was not conditional on the plebiscite from the reasons given by the Emperor for the cession, namely, that it was because of the necessity of safeguarding the frontiers and of maintaining equilibrium.2 Grivaz insists that there must have been a party against annexation for the country was noted for its loyalty and there was at least a respectable minority in March. How could they have disappeared by April, unless it was because they felt the hopelessness of any opposition, and that the choice was between a France which wanted them, and a Piedmont which wanted them no longer? Grivaz asserts that Cavour did what he could politically to bring it about by both appointments and influence. Rouard de Card, Bourgeois, Trésal, Saint Genis and Heimweh all defend the vote of Savoy, the latter saying, however, that it is to no purpose to undertake a proof" which will not change the opinion of the gallophobes of the Triple Alliance."

The arguments of the opposition are no doubt true in part. Certainly the officials had done all in their power to give an appearance of the inevitable to the cession. As for the treaty, it was especially provided that it should not be valid until ratified by parliament, and it was not ratified until after the vote. Napoleon, Victor Emanuel and Cavour all gave repeated assurances that they would abide by the plebiscite. What their course would actually have been had the vote been adverse is a matter for speculation, not decision. 1 Saint Genis, p. 364, and Trésal, p. 276, put the voluntary abstentions at 647. Saint Genis gives the following analysis:

2709 absent

4610 abstentions

1254 infirm or ill

3963

647 voluntary,

out of which 157 were from one commune, half of which was in Switzerland.

2 Grivaz, Revue générale de droit international public, vol. 3, p. 445; Pradier-Fodéré, vol. 3. §857; Felix Stoerk, p. 130, cited by Grivaz.

It is possible that Cavour would have seized the opportunity to abandon the treaty. Certainly Napoleon, the champion of popular sovereignty, to which title he owed his throne, would have been in a position sufficiently embarrassing. It is noteworthy that the specific charges of pressure and corruption which were so freely advanced in the Italian Chamber against the vote of Nice were not urged against the vote of Savoy. There was no charge of manipulation of the ballots nor of any pressure other than moral. Surprisingly enough, there was scarcely any attack on the proclamations issued in Savoy as unneutral nor emphasis on the undoubted activity of the priests. for union. In the final debates of May 24-27 in the Chamber the fact of the French nationality of Savoy was admitted by Rattazzi and the other critics of the government, and opposition to the cession was based on wholly different grounds, namely, those of historical claims and strategic value. The most spirited attacks on the conduct of the vote are to be found in Laurence Oliphant's articles from Savoy to the London Times which was, of course, in sympathy with the British Government's opposition to the cession. Oliphant had gone to Savoy to revive the waning resistance to the cession and to prevent a vote for the "blackguard Emperor." His evidence of lack of freedom of the vote in Savoy is largely frivolous, as examination of the Times articles shows,1 nor are his generalities and inferences worth serious consideration.

It is apparent from the almost unanimous character of the vote for France that something more than the exhortation and argument of the Savoyard officials would be necessary to account for it. With a secret ballot, corruption, manipulation and imminent danger of general calamity would be necessary to provoke such a result against the popular inclination. Certainly there is no need of explaining the vote of Savoy by corruption, pressure or manipulation. The truth appears to be that in Savoy the already existing

1 See the London Times, April 28, 1860. The most convincing argument made by Oliphant is that the officials not only posted their own proclamations urging union, but would not allow anti-union posters to be posted. He also charges that French agents were carrying on propaganda — which was to be expected and was, if not accompanied by threats or bribery, a legitimate activity—and that the zeal of the authorities in satisfying their curiosity regarding the presence at the polls, without registration tickets, of two strange Englishmen, himself and his companion, showed that the vote was not free — a conclusion which is an apparent nonsequitur. He makes no suggestion of military coercion nor of direct bribery. Oliphant's efforts to stir up an opposition were hopeless, as he himself admitted. “There is not the slightest chance of a row," he wrote home, "the people are like sheep." It is evident that, apart from his opposition to Napoleon, he was not sorry to have a chance to ridicule the workings of universal suffrage. Oliphant had gone for adventure and " copy," as well as for a political purpose, and was determined to find it. "It is great fun to have another object than churches and picture-galleries," he wrote home. It is interesting to find that Garibaldi's interpellation of April 12 and the plan for breaking the ballot-boxes and forcing another election in Nice were attributed to him. Margaret O. W. Oliphant, Memoir of the Life of Laurence Oliphant and of Alice Oliphant, his Wife, vol. 1, p. 249 et seq.

French party had been greatly strengthened by the events which occurred immediately before the plebiscite. Already smarting under consciousness of a different origin, resenting administration from Turin, the sudden accretion of millions of Italians which had come to Piedmont through the votes of Tuscany and Emilia made the Savoyards, never enthusiastic over the Italian war, fearful of being completely submerged in the new kingdom. The French promise of a zone and of capital to carry out the material developments which Savoy so sorely needed, and which have served to double her wealth, furnished the economic argument. To the strong Savoyard national pride, the fear of dismemberment of the northern provinces was sufficient of a patriotic arguFear of Cavour's anti-clerical policy united the nobles, lawyers and priests, who, in that somewhat patriarchal society had great influence over the peasants. It is significant that although, ten years later, opportunity to escape from French allegiance presented itself with the Franco-Prussian war, there appears to have been no movement of such a nature.

ment.

Sicily and Naples, 1860

The republicans, the ground cut from under them in Northern and Central Italy by the votes of Tuscany and Emilia, had turned to the provinces of the Marches and Umbria which were still under papal rule, and to the kingdom of the two Sicilies, where the Bourbons still refused a constitution. In conjunction with local leaders Mazzini's agents, Rosalino Pilo and Francisco Crispi, had planned a revolution in Sicily which, early in April, had become an open revolt of such proportions as to induce Garibaldi to put himself at the head of the expedition in its aid.

It is unnecessary to enter here on the tangled web of diplomacy which followed or on the picturesque adventure of Garibaldi's Thousand. On May 14, having landed at Marsala, Garibaldi, from Salemi, proclaimed himself Dictator "on the invitation of noted citizens, and the deliberations of the free communes of the Island." By the end of July the whole island, with the exception of Messina, was in his hands.

1

There were four parties in Sicily, autonomists, republicans, Sardinians and Bourbon sympathizers. Desire for autonomy, which was largely desire for freedom from Neapolitan domination, was a political tradition. Illiteracy was high and, except for the brief period in 1848, Sicilians had had no experience in self-government.1 The strength of the new party for union with Sardinia was uncertain, though it was evident that it was fast increasing with the successes in northern Italy. The plan of the republicans was to delay the decision of the question of the political future of Sicily until Rome and 1 Documents, post, p. 620.