Hello and welcome to Revolutions.

So, last time we did some big picture anti-revolutionary surveying through the eyes of Austrian foreign minister, Metterneesh? Metternish? Metternich? However, you want me to say it, I’m not doing it right, and I apologize for all of you who yelled at me about it. Got a bunch more German coming up in 1848, so I’ll get working on it. Anyway, today what we’re going to do is focus on one of the secret revolutionary societies that would have been concern to Metternich and why he and his secret police were reading the mail and jailing dissidents and clamping down on freedom of the press. But despite all of his repressive tactics, tactics he encouraged everyone else in Europe to adopt along with him, Metternich could not stop the spread or rise of revolutionary secret societies. And as we discussed both in last week’s episode and back in Episode 6.01, and also way back in Episode 5.13, 1820 saw an array of liberal revolutions breakout across Europe. And in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, that revolution was carried out by the Carbonari. 

Now, before we initiate ourselves into the secretive mysteries of the Carbonari, let’s set the scene a little bit. Now, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies covered the island of Sicily and then also the southern part of the Italian peninsula. Technically, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, like the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was a creation of the Congress of Vienna. But that said, it was not just mashed together at random. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was meant to restore to the map of Europe a Kingdom that had existed off and on, going all the way back to the 1100s. The original Kingdom of Sicily covered much of the same territory, but a bunch of deadly political intriguing and civil wars broke out in the late 1200s, which led the mainland part of the Kingdom to break away. But though the mainland part of the Kingdom of Sicily was now based in Naples and had no power over the island of Sicily, the guys who ruled from Naples never relinquished their claim to be the legitimate rulers of the Kingdom of Sicily. Then they called their domains the “Kingdom of Sicily.” Even though nobody today calls it that, historians all call it now the “Kingdom of Naples,” so this doesn’t get too confusing, but for the record, this is where the whole Two Sicilies business comes from.

The territory stayed split through the screwy twists and turns of medieval politics, until the rising Spanish came along in the 1500s and conquered both kingdoms. And if I’m reading this right, then join them together under the personal union of a monarch without technically unifying the Kingdom, the same way that the stewards ruled both the kingdoms of England and Scotland in the 1600s, without England and Scotland themselves being a United Kingdom. Now, after the War of the Spanish Succession in 1715, the Two Sicilies were transferred to the Austrian Hapsburgs, but the new branch of Spanish Bourbons were unhappy with the settlement and conquered it all again in 1734 and 1735. The man who pulled off this conquest was named Charles, who then ruled as King of Naples and Sicily until the death of his childless brother in 1759. What is significant about that death, you ask? Well, let us turn in our hymnals to Episode 5.02, because this very Charles slides over and becomes King Charles III of Spain. He, of all the enlightened Bourbon reforms we talked about when we were setting the stage for Spanish American independence, taking his eldest son to Spain along with him to be his heir, the newly crowned King Charles III of Spain, abdicated the Thrones of Naples and Sicily in favor of his younger son, Ferdinand, who was at that point all of eight years old. After taking up this throne, Ferdinand then ruled in relative tranquility for the next 40 years. 

Now, if you remember back to the French Revolution series, southern Italy was pretty far removed from the front lines as Europe was consumed by the French Revolutionary Wars. Most of the fighting was in Belgium and along the Rhine and the Italian theater was famously a neglected backwater. That is, until young General Bonaparte came along. But even after his successful Italian campaigns, Bonaparte never extended French hegemony South of the Papal States, having more important things to worry about, he left King Ferdinand in place. But then, as we discussed in Episode 3.50, the adventurous French General Championnet decided to channel his inner Bonaparte in 1799 and launched an unauthorized invasion of the Kingdom of Naples. He drove Ferdinand to the safety of Sicily and established another sister Republic called the Parthenopean Republic. Now this briefly forced King Ferdinand to give up his mainland claims, but six months later, under pressure from the British and Austrians and unsupported by the French Directory, who had never wanted Championnet to do this in the first place, the Parthenopean Republic collapsed and Ferdinand reclaimed all his domains.

Now the brief interlude of the Parthenopean Republic, though, remained a disconcerting warning shot and Ferdinand ruled uneasily for the next five years, the other shoe finally dropped in December of 1805, after Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz led to his reorganization of Europe. Emperor Napoleon pushed Ferdinand aside and placed his own brother, Joseph on the throne of the Kingdom of Naples. But critically, the victory at Austerlitz had been matched by the French defeat at Trafalgar, so guarded by the British Navy, King Ferdinand was able to once again retreat to Sicily and rule there as a de facto client King of the British for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars. And if you remember from our little tour through the life of Louis Philippe, remember how in 1809, Louis Philippe married the Sicilian Princess, Marie-Amélie? Well, that is Ferdinand’s daughter. So yes, Ferdinand is Louis Philippe’s father-in-law. He’s also the uncle of the “Desired One,” King Ferdinand VII of Spain, and also the uncle of the Austrian Emperor Francis II, in case you were wondering how interrelated and/or inbred the European royal families really were. 

The arrival in Naples of King Joseph Bonaparte in 1806 finally gets us to the actual topic of today’s episode. Because the people of southern Italy did not take kindly to the expulsion of their King, nor the arrival of French imperial rule. Now nothing like the Peninsula War ever broke out, but for the duration of French rule, there was resistance that the French were never able to stamp out, resistance that was organized and directed by the actual topic of today’s show, and about whom you will now turn to: The Carbonari.

Now, as we’ll see in a second, the origins of the Carbonari are wrapped in mystery and myth and secrecy. But like the Freemasons, the Carbonari likely originated as a trade guild and mutual aid society. Carbonari means literally “charcoal burner” and charcoal burning was like masonry, just a job that you could have. These are the guys who did the necessary and strenuous work of turning wood into coal so that it can be used as a source of fuel. It’s an occupation that dates back to the myths of prehistory, but by the time of the Middle Ages it was a profession that existed at the margins of society. Carbonari inhabited the dense woods of Europe and were either shunned or ignored by more respectable farmers and city dwellers. Out on the edges of civilization and outside the realm of regular law, the Carbonari were threatened by both unscrupulous lords and criminal bandits, so they probably came together to pledge each other support, mutual defense, and assistance. It was a very much “you watch my back and I’ll watch your back” type of situation out in the forest of Europe.

Now, the transformation of the Carbonari from actual charcoal burners to a secret society of revolutionaries is kind of a hard thing to pin down. It’s hard to say when and where this transformation began and how that transformed version of the Carbonari then spread. There is some notion that in the distant past, the dissidents opposed to whoever happened to be the ruling regime at the time would take up residence in the forest and probably come to view the Carbonari associations as a good way to stay in contact and recognize each other. So all the pledges and oaths and secret signs started to mean less “you’re a charcoal burner and I’m a charcoal burner, so we should help each other” to “I’m a political dissident and you are a political dissident. And so we will help each other.”

But that is all just speculation, because by the time modern historians encountered the Carbonari, everything has been filtered through multiple levels of propaganda, deceit, and self-aggrandizing myth. Just like the Masons like to date themselves, all the way back to King Solomon, the Carbonari like to claim that their order was founded by Philip of Macedon of all people, the father of Alexander the Great. But when they weren’t name-dropping Philip of Macedon, the more direct and repeated claim places a great deal of emphasis on Saint Theobald, who was born in northeastern France in 1033 and died in 1066. Well, Theobald was the son of French nobility, but he wanted no part of the family business of war, politics, or managing landed wealth, and instead, he became obsessed with ascetic Christianity, abandoning his inheritance to live as a pilgrim and hermit, and dedicating himself to pious poverty. During his wanderings around Western Europe, Theobald allegedly came into contact with the forest-dwelling Carbonari, who were themselves basically poor hermits, though they weren’t slumming it like Theobald was, and he promised to become their protector. And though he died of a horrible skin disease at the age of 33, he was later canonized by Pope Alexander III. And by the time the version of the Carbonari that interests us comes into existence, Saint Theobald was their patron saint, and a portrait of him hung in every meeting house.

The other benevolent protector that the Carbonari liked to tell each other about was King Francis I of France, the great Renaissance king, who reigned from 1515 to 1547. The story was that King Francis had been out on a hunt one day, encountered the Carbonari, took a liking to them for some reason, and became enrolled as one of their members and then put them under his benevolent protection. In particular, the Carbonari liked to say that Francis exempted them from all taxation. This was something they liked to especially repeat to people who were thinking about becoming members. 

Now all of that is for sure made-up. I mean, we don’t even know if a real Carbonari society existed before they start showing up as another player in the milieu of secret societies that emerged in the early 1700s. If the Carbonari did exist, then it was around this point that they joined the interconnected throng of secret mystical societies and took on heavy doses of the symbolism that pervaded those secret societies. Since individual members of these groups would often join multiple groups influencing, infiltrating, and transforming each other, the Carbonari wind up as an associated branch of the Rosicrucians or the Knights Templar, some said they were started by the Freemasons, who then retconned history for them, others explicitly said that they were a branch of the Bavarian Illuminati. But it’s impossible to tell what from which, since every secret society one might care to research will eventually be linked by someone to Rosicrucians, the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, and the Bavarian Illuminati. It all goes back to Atlantis, you know, just heads up.

But there is no doubt that our Carbonari were heavily influenced by the brand of Freemasonry that emerged in the early 1700s as the Enlightenment got going, but how and why just opens a flood of questions we don’t have answers to. But if you ask me, and I knew you would, the veneration of Theobald, a French saint, and Francis I, a French king, makes it likely that the Carbonari originated in France, though I have also seen it traced back to both Britain and Spain. Certainly the most plausible of all the competing stories that I’ve read, though, says that the Carbonari secret societies originated in the mountains of eastern France, along the Alpine border with Switzerland. Swiss mercenaries, who originated from the same area probably adopted the Carbonari language and organizational structures and brought them with them to southern Italy, where it expanded and took local route. After the French began to expand in the late 1790s, the Carbonari lodges understandably became a focal point for anti-French dissidents. And in this way, the Italian Carbonara remind me of the South American Freemasons who, likewise, needed a secret way to recruit and communicate with each other and found the secret Carbonari networks a good way to do it. So it’s as much that political dissidents joined the Carbonari and made the group revolutionary as it was the Carbonari being a group of revolutionaries turning its members into dissidents. But in short order, the feedback loop makes the distinction pointless.

So because the organizational structure is really the important thing here, let’s talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of it all. So first of all, yes, this was a secret society, and secrecy was amongst its most important aspects. It was drilled into new members from the minute they entered and then reinstalled as they rose up through the ranks. This is definitely the first rule of the Carbonari is you do not talk about the Carbonari. The second rule of the Carbonari is you do not talk about the Carbonari. But that said, they did like recruiting new members, so eventually you have to talk about the Carbonari, and a candidate for enrollment would be identified by an existing member and invited to join. The minimum age for initiation was 33 and 1/3, which was reckoned to be the age of death of Jesus. But other than that, nothing but upright morals and trustworthiness were necessary preconditions for enrollment. Princes and peasants alike both joined and would become equal Carbonari, and among themselves, they called each other not “brothers”, but “good cousins.”

So when a new initiate would be brought blindfolded to the Carbonari meeting house, which in keeping with the theme of “we’re a bunch of charcoal burners,” these meeting houses were often converted barns or huts out in the woods. The secure and safe interior space of the meeting house was called the Vendita, and it would be decorated with the Spartan aesthetics of Saint Theobald: bare white walls, simple benches for sitting, even the Grand Master of a particular lodge sat on a simple carved block of wood. Still blindfolded, the new initiate would face his future Carbonari good cousins and be asked his name, religion, age, and place of residence, then he would repeat some rehearsed formula about how he had been in the woods kindling a fire and wanted to bring faith, hope, and charity to all good cousins. He would then be told by the Grandmaster that he must be sincere and docile and ready to face any challenge. Then the initiate would be sent out briefly into the woods on a symbolic journey where symbolic obstacles would be placed in his path. When he returned to the meeting house, he would be told that the journey represented the weakness of mortals, a weakness that could only be overcome by good works guided by reason. Then he would be sent on a second symbolic journey, this time through fire, which he was told was the Flame of Charity that he must keep kindled in his heart. Upon return, he swore a solemn oath never to betray the secrets of the Carbonari, and then finally, his blindfold was removed. He would then be shown a hatchet that would kill him if he betrayed the Carbonari or protect him if he was faithful. He would then also be shown the sacred tricolor symbol of the Carbonari, which was red, blue, and black and on one level, red was for fire, blue for smoke, and black for the charcoal, but on a higher level, red was for charity, blue was for hope, and black was for faith. Now, after swearing all of these oaths not to betray the secrets of the Carbonari, the newly enrolled Apprentice was given no special passwords and entrusted with no actual secrets. They were, however, given the secret sign, which is pressing the middle finger against the right thumb. That’s the Carbonari gang sign. 

Now at this most basic level, the Apprentice level, there was nothing that was out of step with traditional Catholic values or symbols or rhetoric: faith, hope, and charity, obedience, good works. I mean, the Carbonari are recruiting from across southern Italy, and though skeptical atheism and sneering at religious superstition pervaded the elites and the educated bourgeoisie, that was not going to fly if you were recruiting from the lower classes of southern Italy. The historian John Rath, who wrote the paper from which I’m getting these initiation details, makes the point that all of this was not to turn Carbonari into good Christians, but to turn good Christians into Carbonari.

Most enrolled Carbonari never made it beyond the Apprentice grade. They were totally in the dark about what it was really all about and simply did their best to live by these basic values and do what they were told when they were told to do it. But if they stuck with it over time and proved their fidelity, they would be invited to become a master. The initiation rite for the masters went really heavy on Christian symbolism. It had the candidate playing the part of Jesus in a mock trial with the Grandmaster as Pontius Pilate. An elaborate ritual unfolded of rehearsed lines and explaining that Jesus was the first Carbonari and that the 12 apostles, the first good cousins. The initiate was told Jesus was the perfect man who had been victimized by tyranny. His crime was bringing enlightenment to the people and trying to free them from their slavery. As the ritual initiation unfolded, the candidate had a crown of thorns placed on his head and throughout sacrifice was emphasized again and again, as was spreading the good word. Again, all of this is in keeping with Christian themes. But now there is also a heavy emphasis on opposing tyranny wherever it resided. The sacred words for the master were honor, virtue, and probity, and they were now given a special password: “fern nettle”, whatever that means. The newly enrolled masters would then be told that they must use reason to bridle their passions, to be obedient without asking questions, and that they must sacrifice themselves like Christ before they betrayed their fellow good cousins. 

Now above the rank of master, it’s unclear how many more ranks there were. As secret societies go, the Carbonari were fairly decentralized, and some lodges likely only have the two grades: master and apprentice. But as time went on and their purposes became more sophisticated and dangerous, there were probably as many as seven or even nine total ranks. The highest officers either in the individual lodge or in the whole movement were called the Great Lights. Again, this is mystical Enlightenment jargon that was common to most secret societies of the day. Only these Great lights knew what the score really was, and even an average master knew only that he needed to obey the orders of his superiors, protect the secrets of the order, and try to recruit other worthy candidates.

So what was really the score? What did the Great Lights know that the average apprentice or master did not? Well, the answer is it depends on what time period you’re talking about. There appears to have been a lot of change in specific aims and political leanings over the years, but after the arrival of King Joseph Bonaparte in 1806, there were a few constants. The first was the embrace and spread of Italian nationalism. Long a fractured peninsula of small kingdoms and city-states, often used by the other powers of Europe as a military playground whose people would then be doled out to satisfy the ambitions of those foreign powers at the next big diplomatic summit. The arrival of the Napoleonic Empire permanently kindled the dream of Italian national independence. In the early days, what really bound the Carbonari good cousins together was a shared hatred of the French and desire to expel them from the peninsula. But beyond Italian nationalism, there was also a persistent hankering for constitutional government. The dream of a constitution, whatever the details of it were, is always appealing to those outside of power, because a constitution is a way to bind the hands of those who have power over you. So I think it’s fair to say that by about 1808, the Carbonari were Italian nationalists who wanted a constitutional government, preferably one run by the Italians themselves.

But beyond these basic principles, there was a lot of flexibility at play. As you may recall from Episode 5.06, when Napoleon forced the Abdications of Bayonne in 1808, he plucked his brother, Joseph, out of Naples and made him King of Spain. So to replace Joseph in Naples, Napoleon elevated Joachim Murat, one of his most able Marshals, who had been with him since Italy, served with him through Egypt, had been one of the Brumaire conspirators, he had married Napoleon’s sister. 

After taking over Naples in 1808, Murat’s relationship with the Carbonari was ambiguous. Far from trying to stamp them out, he appears to have helped shield them from the more Catholic and conservative authorities. Murat’s Police Commissioner was himself a Carbonaro, which explains a lot on that front. But Murat also genuinely seemed sympathetic to many of their aims. But when things started going badly for Napoleon after the invasion of Russia, Murat took a turn against the Carbonari. He now saw them as a force working against the Bonaparte imperial dynasty, of which he was still a member. But as Napoleon’s star continued to fall, Murat elected to lookout for number one. He cut a side deal with the Austrians that would allow him to stay on the throne in Naples, even if Napoleon was defeated.

The Carbonari, however, could now smell blood in the water and most of them seemed inclined to support the return of King Ferdinand and the rejoining of Sicily and Naples under Bourbon rule. Murat then got the tip off that the guys at the Congress of Vienna were inclined to go in this direction, whatever their promises had been, and so when Napoleon came back for the 100 days, Murat redeclared for his old chief. He raised an army to hopefully attack the underbelly of the Allies from Italy while Napoleon fought their main armies in Belgium, but this left him way out on a limb that he could not retreat from. The Austrians defeated him handily in May of 1815, and shortly thereafter King Joachim Murat was captured and executed. 

So the defeat of Murat, the defeat of Napoleon, and then the signing of the Congress of Vienna meant that there was now a restored order of things in southern Italy, and King Ferdinand was recast as Ferdinand I of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But upon his return to Naples, Ferdinand appears to have misunderstood what the Carbonari were about. Assuming that they were like radical Republican Jacobins, he did not thank them for supporting his restoration and instead set out on a mission to exterminate them. But this effort backfired as it coincided with a turnover in Carbonari membership and a shift in its specific aims. Most of the more conservative members departed after 1815, and they joined the restored Bourbon monarchy, while those who had been opposed to the Bourbon Restoration stayed in the Carbonari, and those who maybe were outside of it before, but who now saw their influence threatened, joined. 

So the Carbonari remained a revolutionary secret society, except they now operated in opposition to Ferdinand rather than in support of Ferdinand. But it was not all Ferdinand’s fault that the Carbonari had been provoked into hostility to his restored regime. The basic program of Italian nationalism and constitutional government remained unsatisfied in the post-Napoleonic world. Italians of all stripe had gone to the Congress of Vienna trying to secure the creation of a unified and independent Italy, and had been soundly rebuffed. The vision of the diplomats at Vienna was to move Italy back to a told “medieval order” rather than forward to its modern destiny. And then, adding insult to this injury, Ferdinand refused to grant the subjects of the Kingdom of Naples a constitution, which, I mean, they didn’t even get a charter of government like even Louis XVIII was just then giving France and this was all the more obnoxious because while Ferdinand had been ruling Sicily under British protection, the British had forced him to promulgate a constitution for the Sicilians. So the Neapolitans naturally assumed that they would get a constitution too, but there was zero hint that one was coming anytime soon. So many of those who had embraced the return of Ferdinand quickly realized their error and returned to the Carbonari fold. 

Now, not too long before the re-arrival of Ferdinand, the mostly decentralized Carbonari organization had started to coalesce into a more unified hierarchy. A Supreme Lodge based in Naples called the Alta Vendita, claimed for itself the power to pass new laws, adjudicate disputes, issue charters for new lodges, and punish transgressions by members. In many ways they were establishing a state within a state. As individuals would submit themselves to the Carbonari laws far more readily than to regular municipal authorities. It was, in fact, a law that a standard legal dispute between two Carbonari would not take place in regular court, but rather they would appeal to their good cousins.

But after the return of Ferdinand, the authority of the Alta Vendita in Naples was challenged from below by the allegedly subordinate lodges, who turned on the quote unquote “authorities in Naples,” who not unjustifiably, were seen as now straying from the more rigorous adherence to Carbonari principles because the guys in Naples were getting into bed with Ferdinand. So a lodge in Salerno, down the coast from Naples, sent out a call to other Carbonari lodges asking them to send representatives to a new assembly that would then issue its own rules under the guise of this secretive western Lucanian Republic, another state within a state, a state within the Carbonari state. These guys were even more militant about adhering to Carbonari principles and more militant about being militant, there was a requirement to stay under arms at all times and adhere more than ever to Carbonari government rather than Ferdinand’s government. And with administrators, judges, lawyers, military officers, average workers and even priests all enrolled as Carbonari, this was no small thing that was going on. 

But even still, as 1820 approached, there was little hint at revolution. Yeah, there was some liberal agitation across Europe, but King Ferdinand certainly had no inkling of a problem until word came over from Spain about the mutiny at Cádiz. There was a lot of contact back and forth between Spain and southern Italy and news of the mutiny and then the growing revolution that culminated with the formerly “Desired One”, King Ferdinand VII, accepting the old liberal constitution of 1812. This got the Carbonari in Italy fired up and they rallied around the simple belief that the time had finally come for King Ferdinand, their King Ferdinand, to promulgate a constitution, a belief that was now almost unstoppable because to maintain his own sideways claim to the throne, King Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, swore to uphold the Spanish constitution to make sure that he didn’t get booted out of the line of Spanish succession. So he had now sworn an oath that the Spanish would get to keep their liberal constitution if he ascended to the Spanish throne, but he couldn’t deign to give one to his present Neapolitan subjects? It was infuriating.

So word of the mutiny in Cádiz set off a flurry of Carbonari recruitment. They probably numbered somewhere between 50 and 100,000 in January of 1820, but with opportunity at hand and a population hungering for constitutional government, the Carbonari membership exploded. The largest and overstated number puts them at 600,000 by July of 1820, but it was probably more like 300,000. But still, that’s at least a threefold increase. And all of those new recruits remained apprentices where it was driven into them that the thing to do was to follow orders, not ask questions, and more importantly, not answer questions if the authorities came round.

At the center of this new round of revolutionary plotting was a General named Guglielmo Pepe. Both a high-ranking Carbonaro and a high-ranking military officer, Pepe was in prime position to affect a Carbonari mutiny/coup/revolution, but as sedition picked up in May and June of 1820, General Pepe hesitated a bit to jump into revolution with both feet and started counseling caution to his good cousins. A revolt that had been planned for the end of May was called off for the last minute and it seemed like maybe nothing was actually going to come of this, but then the senior Carbonari’s hand was forced by a lodge embedded in the military garrison at Nola. The Grandmaster of this lodge was a priest named Minichini and he conspired with two officers, Giuseppe Silvati and Michele Morelli, to organize the beginning of an armed uprising. They called out the other Carbonari in their garrison, 127 cavalrymen plus 20 civilians. And they all marched out at midnight on July the 1st, 1820 on their way to Avellino, which was the military capital of the region. But as they neared the town, the gates of the city were shut and the small band of Carbonari insurgents had to fortify a position practically just on the side of the road. Though it was damn near impregnable, they occupied some pretty sweet high ground. And from there, they sent out a call for all good cousins to flock to the blue, red and black. 

The following day, a government council in Naples nearly sent General Pepe to quell this uprising, which would have been pretty funny, but his loyalty was rightly suspected, and Pepe was instead ordered deep into the south of the Kingdom, and a colleague ordered to take his place. Though his colleague was suspiciously slow in getting started, he waited a full day before leaving Naples with his troops, and even then, only after he was directly ordered to do so. Then, as he approached the band of insurgents with 600 men, he refused to engage. All of which is very suspicious, but you have to remember incompetence and conspiracy are often indistinguishable to those of us on the outside.

But then the good cousins inside the Garrison at Avellino exerted their own influence and had the gates of the city thrown open, giving the Carbonari a proper headquarters and rallying point for the now thousands of good cousins streaming to the blue, red, and black. Their arms long kept ready. When word went out, they walked out of whatever they were doing, grabbed their gun, and made their way to Avellino. Now other regular army regiments in the region were supposed to now go subdue this little insurgency, but every regiment had a Carbonari lodge in its midst and none of them could be trusted to fight. Most of them would probably defect at the first opportunity. Those that did march out found every town in the region suddenly waving a blue, red, and black flag as if they had been made overnight and hostile to any attempt to break the insurgents. On July the 4th, the Carbonari issued their formal demands: promulgate a constitution, convene some kind of parliament, and refrain from anything resembling political repression. 

General Pepe, meanwhile, finally decided that the revolution was in fact at hand, whether he wanted it or not, and he slipped out of Naples on July the 5th to go take full command of the situation, and by now the situation was that the Carbonari were numbering some 20,000 armed men. This is just within a few days of the word going out. Scared that this state within a state was erupting from underneath his feet and seemed very well armed, King Ferdinand capitulated. Kind of. A proclamation was posted in Naples on July the 6th that said: 

“To the nation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: the general wish of the nation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies having been expressed in favor of a constitutional government, we consent of our full free will and promise to publish its basis within eight days, until such time as the Constitution is published, the old laws will remain in vigor. Having thus satisfied the public desire, we order that the soldiers do return to their regiments, and every man to his ordinary occupation. – Ferdinand, Naples, July the 6th, 1820”

But this was not enough for the Carbonari, who believed that there was no need to waste time with this eight days business. I mean, the Spanish Constitution of 1812 is right there for the taking. All you have to do is adopt it. I mean, for crying out loud, you’ve already accepted its legitimacy for the Spaniards. All you have to do is do that for us. Why is this so hard?

So the next day a menacing crowd gathered at the palace gates in Naples and in response the government said, “fine.” A decree enacting the Constitution of 1812 was posted.

Now, just as kind of a funny aside here, the British ambassador in Naples noted in the middle of all this, that so far as he could tell, no one in Ferdinand’s government, nor any of the people outside shouting bloody murder, had ever actually read the Spanish Constitution of 1812. It was just this thing they were all fighting over, even though nobody knew what was in it.

So even with the Constitution now declared, General Pepe sent word down to Naples that he was marching on the capital. The government said, “OK, fine, you can come, but when you enter, please only bring 2,000 men with you.” General Pepe ignored this and on July the 9th, 1820 led fully 14,000 armed Carbonari into Naples, there to be greeted by their fellow good cousins inside the city. As if by magic, the blue, red and black now flew everywhere. Pepe kept his men in perfect order and under strict discipline, marched them to the palace, and presented himself declaring his ultimate loyalty to the King, God, and the Constitution. And because everybody loves a good balcony scene, this all comes with a balcony scene. Now King Ferdinand had taken to bed and refused to come out, but the Crown Prince appeared on the balcony wearing the Carbonari blue, red, and black. The revolution was complete and not a single drop of blood had been spilled. 

But as we’ve seen roughly 1 jillion times so far here on the Revolutions podcast, nothing sows dissension like success and even the faithful Carbonari were not immune to the entropy of victory. There were among the Carbonari those who wanted a constitutional government and now had one and so were ready to go along with whatever the new program was. But more radical members, some Republican, some with simply more democratic impulses, wanted to level the old government still further. And as is also often the case, it would appear that the senior leadership skewed conservative in this regard and they wanted to adapt the very liberal Spanish Constitution into something more fitting for the southern Italians who might not be ready for it. So over the next few months, as elections for the first Parliament got underway, the Carbonari fell into infighting. Some radicals were purged and others broke away and founded a new group called the Prometheans, dedicated to more radical egalitarian principles.

Now all the while, King Ferdinand was, duh, in contact with the members of the Holy Alliance, saying, you know, “Hey, a little help down here?” So Foreign Minister Metternich arranged for a 60,000-man Austrian army to mobilize in northern Italy. But even this threat of imminent foreign invasion could not pull the Carbonari back together. General Pepe led an army north, but when it finally came time to face the enemy, he only had about 3,000 regulars and 9,000 militia. Another flanking army was supposed to be supporting him, but instead, the General of that flanking army was cutting terms of surrender with the Austrians. So General Pepe launched a somewhat reckless advance on March the 7th, 1821, but his army was easily repulsed, sent into retreat, the retreat turned into a flight, the flight turned into total disintegration. The other army then likewise disintegrated, though they didn’t even fire a shot. On March the 23rd, 1821, the Austrian Army entered Naples, restored Ferdinand to his throne, canceled the Constitution, and that was that. A couple of other revolutionary uprisings then got going in northern Italy at the same time. This was all supposed to be taking place at the same time, but those two were quashed under the boots of the Austrian army. 

So that’s the ignoble end of the Carbonari, right? Well, yes and no. The revolutions of 1820 in Italy had failed, and the Carbonari networks were mostly shattered. But you can’t keep a good secret society down, especially not when there are still secrets to be kept. And though this most public expression of the dream of Italian independence and constitutional government had been crushed, that did not mean that the dream was dead. Far from it. The Italians were in fact just getting started and in the end all of this, all of the revolutions of 1820 and these initial Carbonari revolts were just a prelude. And when we get going on the revolutions of 1848, we will return to the Italian peninsula to keep those dreams alive.

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