While the Governor of Chambéry has positively declared that 
the King of Sardinia has never contemplated the cession of Savoy 
to France,* we have from the Foreign Minister of England the 
assurance, delivered in the House of Commons on the 2d inst., 
that the project was disavowed last Summer by Count Walewski in 
behalf of the Emperor of the French.” These statements of Lord 
John Russell, however, refer to a period of several months ago; 
and what was then denied may now be very nearly consummated. 
Certainly it is difficult, or rather impossible, to believe that the 
movement for annexation to France, which has recently been 
developed among the people of Savoy, is purely of native origin. 
It must have been fomented by French agents, and must be 
sanctioned, or at least tolerated, by the Government of King 
Victor Emmanuel. 

Savoy is a province of thorough and decided French nationality, 
as much as the western cantons of Switzerland. The people speak 
a Southern French (Provencal or Limousin) dialect; but the written 
and official language is everywhere French. This, however, is no 
proof whatever that the Savoyards wish to be annexed to France, 
and particularly to Bonapartist France. According to the notes of a 
German officer who made a military tour through the country in 
January, 1859, the French party is nowhere of any importance, 
except in Chambéry and the other towns of Lower Savoy, while 

a“The Annexation of Savoy’, The Times, No. 23530, January 31, 
1860.— Ed. 

b John Russell’s speech in the House of Commons on February 2, 1860, The 
Times, No. 23533, February 3, 1860.— Ed. 

Upper Savoy, Maurienne and Tarentaise would prefer to remain 
as they are, and Chablais, Faucigny and Genévois, the three 
northern districts, would prefer to form a new Canton of the Swiss 
Confederation. Still Savoy, being thoroughly French, will undoubt- 
edly more and more gravitate toward the great center of French 
nationality, and ultimately be united to it, so that it is a mere 
question of time. 

With Nice the case is different. The people of the county of 
Nice also speak a Provengal dialect but here the written language, 
the education, the national spirit, everything is Italian. The 
relation between the Northern Italian and the Southern patois is 
so close that it is almost impossible to say where one ends and the 
other begins. Even the patois of Piedmont and Lombardy is, in its 
inflections, thoroughly Provengal, while the way in which the 
words are formed from the Latin, is essentially Italian. To claim 
Nice on the strength of this patois would never do; consequently, 
it is now claimed on the ground of supposed sympathies for 
France, the existence of which, however, is more than problemati- 
cal. That Nice, in spite of these sympathies and of its patois, is 
thoroughly Italian, there can be no better proof than that it 
produced the soldier, par excellence, of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi. 
The notion of Garibaldi becoming a Frenchman, is ludicrous 
enough. 

The cession of both these Provinces would not much weaken 
Piedmont in a merely financial point of view. Savoy is a poor 
country, which, although it produces the best soldiers in the 
Sardinian army, yet never pays the expense of its own administra- 
tion. Nice is not much better off, and, besides, is but a small strip 
of land. Apparently the loss would not be great. Nice, though 
Italian, might be sacrificed to the consolidation of Northern and 
Central Italy; and the loss of a foreign province like Savoy might 
even be considered an advantage, so long as the chances of Italian 
unity are thereby promoted. But things take a far different aspect 
when examined from a military point of view. 

From Geneva to Nice, the present frontier between France and 
Sardinia forms almost a straight line. On the south, the sea, on the 
north, neutral Switzerland, cut off all communication. So far, the 
position of the parties in a war between Italy and France would 
appear equal. But both Savoy and Nice are situated beyond the 
main ridge of the Alps, which surround Piedmont proper in a vast 
arc, and both are open toward France. While, therefore, on the 
frontier of Piedmont and France, each party holds one side of the 
Alpine chain, Italy holds, on the northern and southern parts of 

Savoy and Nice 559 

the frontier, both sides, and thereby completely commands the 
passes. 

Moreover, while from want of traffic all the roads across the 
Alps leading from Piedmont into France have become quite 
neglected, the road over Mont Cenis from Piedmont to Savoy, and 
that over the Col di Tenda from Piedmont to Nice, are main roads 
of European traffic, and in capital order. The consequence is, that 
in all wars between France and Italy, both Nice and Savoy, when 
the attack came from the Italian side, have formed natural bases 
of operation for an invasion of France; and when France attacked, 
she had to conquer these two provinces before she could assail 
transalpine Italy. And although neither Nice nor Savoy could be 
held by the Italians against a superior army, they have still 
afforded time for a concentration of the Italian forces in the 
plains of Piedmont, and thus served as a safeguard against 
surprise. 

If the military advantages resulting to Italy from the possession 
of Savoy and Nice were confined to these positive ones, they might 
still be sacrificed without any severe inconvenience. But the 
negative advantages are by far the greatest. Let us imagine Mont 
Blanc, Mont Iseran, Mont Cenis, and the Col di Tenda, to be 
gigantic stone pillars marking the frontier of France. The frontier, 
instead of being a straight line as now, would sweep around 
Piedmont in an immense arc. Chambéry, Albertville, Moutiers, the 
points where the chief roads converge, would be turned into 
French depots. The northern slope of the Mont Cenis would be 
guarded and fortified by the French; the outposts of the two 
nations would meet on its hight, two marches from Turin. On the 
south, Nice would be the center of the French depots, and their 
outposts would stand at Oneglia, four marches from Genoa. Thus, 
the French would be, even in time of peace, at the very gates of 
the two largest towns of Northwestern Italy, and as their territory 
would almost surround Piedmont on three sides, they could 
render impossible the concentration of an Italian army in the plain 
of the Upper Po. Any attempt to concentrate the Italian forces 
west of Alessandria would be exposed to an attack before the 
concentration was complete—in other words to a series of defeats 
in detail. Thus, the center of defense of Piedmont would at once 
be removed from Turin to Alessandria; in other words, Piedmont 
proper would become incapable of serious defense, and would be 
at the mercy of the French. This is what Louis Napoleon calls 

“a free and grateful Italy, which, to France alone, will owe her independence.” 

If we turn to the North, what is a standing menace to Italy 
would be a death blow to Switzerland. Savoy becoming French, the 
whole of Western Switzerland, from Basel to the Great St. 
Bernard, would be hemmed in by French territory, and untenable 
for a day in case of war. This is so conspicuous, that the Vienna 
Congress resolved to neutralize Northern Savoy as much as 
Switzerland, and in case of war to give the Swiss the right to 
occupy and defend that district.* Sardinia, a paltry State of four 
millions, could not object to such a regulation; but could or would 
France allow part of her territory to be thus placed in military 
subjection to another and a smaller State? Could Switzerland 
attempt, in the event of war, to occupy and take under her 
military control a French province? Certainly not. And then, 
whenever it might suit France, the whole of French Switzerland, 
the Bernese Jura, Neuchatel, Vaud, Geneva, with as much of 
Fribourg and Valais as might be deemed expedient, might be 
annexed as easily and comfortably as Savoy and Nice; and until — 
such time Switzerland would be as much under the control and 
influence of France, as if she were a mere satellite. As to Swiss 
neutrality in case of war, that will have ceased from the same 
moment. There can be no neutrality when a great and warlike 
power is able at all times to crush its neutral neighbor. 

This innocent-looking plan for the annexation of Savoy and 
Nice has no other meaning than to establish French domination in 
Italy and Switzerland—to make France paramount on the Alps. 
This little step once accomplished, how long will it be before we 
behold the attempt to make France paramount on the Rhine also? 

Written in early February 1860 Reproduced from the newspaper 

a leading article 

a “Declaration des Puissances rassemblées au Congrés de Vienne au sujet de la 
Suisse. Annexe N° 11 de l’acte du Congrés de Vienne”.— Ed. 

561 

Frederick Engels