Italy in the european states system of the pre-march period: some reflections

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the role that Italy played in the European States System in 1830–1848 from a new, more realist perspective paying particular attention to the policy of Metternich’s Austria in the Apennines. As it attempts to prove, from 1830 to 1848 Italy witnessed considerable reluctance on the part of the Great Powers as well as the Italian states themselves to contribute through cooperation and restraint to the strengthening of the pillars that upheld the system. Italy, much like the Ottoman Empire, was an unstable area with dangerous potential for European peace, and it was no accident that the peace restored in 1815 was disturbed for the first time in Western Europe during 1848 in Italy.