Treaty of Turin - Background

Background

A secret meeting took place at Plombières-les-Bains on July 21, 1858 between the French emperor, Napoleon III and Prime Minister Cavour of Kingdom of Sardinia. The outcome of the meeting was an agreement whereby the emperor agreed to support the unification of Italy by Sardinia provided that Papacy should retain control of Rome: France would be rewarded with the lands of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice. In April 1859, Austria, complaining that Sardinia had been supplying armaments to Lombard separatists, declared war on Sardinia. Early on, the Austrians were beaten in battle at Palestro and Montebello. More substantial battles took place in June at Magenta and Solferino. These battles also resulted in victory for the Franco-Sardinians side, but the French emperor, who had taken personal command of his army, professed himself horrified by the extent of the bloodshed involved and resolved to end the war: this was achieved with the signing of an armistice at Villafranca on July 12, 1859 which would form the basis for the Treaty of Zurich of November 1859. Italian unification was deferred, though as matters turned out, not for long.

Charles Albert, the Duke of Savoy and king of Sardinia till 1849, had been an active partisan for Italian nationalism. Among the liberal elites in francophone Savoy, the idea had grown up that the ruling house based in Turin had little concern for their province beyond Mont Blanc. In practical terms, at a time when the extent of state activity was increasing across Europe, this was manifest in a perceived discrimination against French speakers when making government appointments. On July 25, 1859 about 30 leading citizens of Chambéry presented an address to the emperor in which they called for the Duchy of Savoy to be annexed to France.

Elsewhere in Savoy, especially in the north, opposition to the idea of French annexation began to mobilise. The formerly Savoyard province of Carouge, adjacent to Geneva had been transferred to Switzerland in 1816 under the terms of an earlier Treaty of Turin, as part of the unbundling of Napoleon I's empire. Scenarios now under discussion included continuing with Savoy as a province of Sardinia, or joining more or even all of the territory with Switzerland, an outcome favoured by Great Britain. There was very little support for the idea of a totally autonomous Savoy, the vulnerability of small quasi-autonomous territories having been vividly demonstrated within living memory by the First French Empire.