Italy. 25 August 1848
Italy.
* Florence, 13 August. If the revolution, says the latest issue of the “Alba”, has died out in Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt and Pesth; if the Slavs, Hungarians and Germans have believed they could conquer the banner of their freedom by separating from one another, or, together with the collapsing thrones, turned all their might against Italy: is the Italian revolution, then, perhaps to be extinguished? Let Europe not deceive itself as to the fate and the destiny of Italy! The delusion would be great, the disillusion would be terrible. For the independence of Italy is a necessity for the civilisation of Western Europe. Like every political question, the Italian one is most intimately bound up with the victory or the endangerment of civilisation. Civilisation, always hindered and threatened by the Brandenburg and Austrian houses, now cannot possibly be defended by them with sincerity. Perhaps the Hungarians, Germans and Slavs will very soon see what lot awaits them, if Italy is once more bent back under the Austrian yoke.
The unity of Germany is then perhaps only a dream, which the discord and ambition of the individual German states will very soon dispel. Austria and Prussia will again quarrel over the spoils of a people that did not know how to carry a splendid revolution through to the end. The German revolution was betrayed right at its first steps. Just as it is impossible to hold a revolution fast when it consistently pursues its course, so it is easy to subdue it when it deviates from its path and is hindered by deliberations that attach themselves to the old order of things and to tottering institutions.