The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 991: Chapter 55: Denmark Controversy

In the 1830s, the unification of the Apennine Peninsula was still a distant prospect.

Italy, like Germany, was understood more as a geographical concept rather than a country’s name.

Just as many small principalities stood in the Germanic region, Italy, after the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Napoleonic Wars, still consisted of six countries: the Papal States, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Modena, the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, and the Two Sicilies Kingdom.

Among these six countries, except for the theocratic Papal States and the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the House of Savoy, the other four were mostly under the direct or indirect control of the Austrian Empire.

For instance, the Two Sicilies Kingdom mentioned by Heine, although their kings were from the Bourbon Family, had queens from the Austrian Habsburg Royal Family for two consecutive generations after the kingdom’s restoration post-Napoleonic Wars.

As for the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Modena, they were from branches of the Austrian Habsburg Family.

The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, on the other hand, was directly under the Austrian Royal Family.

Half of Italy was occupied by Austrians, and figures like Mazzini leading Young Italy viewed the unification of the entire Apennine Peninsula as their ultimate goal, inevitably leading to clashes with the Austrians.

This was also the fundamental reason why Austrian Prime Minister Metternich was quite unhappy with the French government’s sheltering of these Italian nationalists.

However, to the King of France, Louis Philippe, his rise to power relied on the title of ‘Citizen King’ and the tricolor flag symbolizing liberty, equality, and fraternity.

Therefore, his sheltering of Young Italy was not specifically against Austria, for were not the Poles, a thorn in the Tsar’s side, also rooted in Paris?

Moreover, even putting aside Louis Philippe’s survival needs for flag-waving, France has a long-standing tradition of sheltering political exiles from various countries.

This even included the Jacobites, who longed to regain the English throne and restore the Stuart Dynasty and Catholic faith.

Originally, to prevent the Catholics from inheriting the English throne, Britain launched the Glorious Revolution, and Parliament declared the dethronement of King James II, enthroning James II’s eldest daughter Mary II, a National Church of England adherent, and her husband William III of the Netherlands to rule together.

With the internal and external maneuvers of Parliament and William III, the 15,000 Dutch troops under William III smoothly landed at Torbay without any resistance. Upon learning the news, King James II had to abandon the throne and flee overnight to France.

However, most English people opposing James II did not mean the Scots and Irish felt the same.

After the king’s escape, the Scottish Highland nobility refused to pledge allegiance to the new king, and Ireland, as a traditional Catholic stronghold, even passed an act declaring the English Parliament’s dethronement of James II unconstitutional, affirming James II as the King of Ireland.

With French support, James II landed in Ireland and was greeted with cheers of “Long live the King.”

Under James II’s flag, the Scottish Highland nobility and Irish quickly formed an alliance, calling themselves ‘Jacobites’, and began a large-scale siege of the Church of England’s stronghold in Ireland at Londonderry.

However, they were ultimately defeated by William III’s army, forced to retreat en masse to France, where the French Army absorbed this force into its combat ranks under the name ‘Irish Brigade.’

This Irish Brigade, through over a century of historical changes, was later expanded by Napoleon into an Irish Regiment of five battalions totaling 2,000 men, achieving outstanding feats in the Peninsular War. Due to its remarkable contributions, the Irish Regiment became the only foreign unit awarded the Empire’s Eagle Standard by the Emperor.

However, with the Bourbon Dynasty’s restoration, considering the soldiers of the Irish Regiment’s excessive enthusiasm for Napoleon’s family, although they never fired a shot at the Legitimist Party, they were still ordered to disband.

Nonetheless, compared to the experience of the Irish Brigade, the inheritance issue of the Jacobites was even more troubling, as after a hundred and fifty years of struggle, the long-standing problem of European nobility arose—their imagined legitimate English dynasty, the Stuart Dynasty, had gone extinct.

To resolve this issue, the Jacobites’ heraldic experts meticulously reviewed the laws of succession and the royal family lineage, concluding that the English throne should belong to the King of Italy’s Kingdom of Sardinia, Carlo Alberto.

Carlo Alberto, the King of Sardinia?

As Arthur thought of this name, he immediately recalled a document he had previously read at the embassy.

Last year, before instigating the Vendee uprising, the Royalist Leader Duchess of Berry seemed to have stayed in the Kingdom of Sardinia for quite a long time.

And according to information verified by the Foreign Office, the passport the Duchess of Berry held when she landed in Marseille was also from the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the ship she took was named ‘Carlo Alberto’ after the Sardinian King.

The sponsor of the Royalists was the Kingdom of Sardinia, not the Bourbon’s Two Sicilies Kingdom?

And if Arthur remembered correctly, earlier this year, Young Italy under Mazzini’s leadership had just launched an uprising in Genoa, Kingdom of Sardinia. However, due to poor planning, this uprising was extinguished just as it sparked a little flame.