Plebiscite of Veneto of 1866

The Venetian plebiscite of 1866, also known officially as the Plebiscite of Venetian Provinces and Mantua (Italian: Plebiscito di Venezia, delle province venete e di quella di Mantova), was a plebiscite that took place on Sunday 21 and Monday 22 October 1866 to sanction the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy of the lands ceded to France by the Austrian Empire following the Third War of Independence.
In April 1866, the Kingdom of Italy entered into a military alliance with Prussia, aiming to unite Veneto and Trent to its territory. The alliance was maintained despite the Austrian offer to cede Veneto to Napoleon III's France (Austria officially had no diplomatic relations with Italy), which in turn would hand it over to Italy. The Third War of Independence, unleashed by the Italian side within the larger framework of the Austro-Prussian war, saw, after the initial defeat at the Battle of Custoza that occurred four days after the declaration of war on 20 June, military successes by Garibaldi in Trentino, at Bezzecca, and by Cialdini, who reached as far as Palmanova and won the Battle of Versa. The Italian navy's defeat at the Battle of Lissa on 20 July convinced the Kingdom of Italy to accept a truce starting on 25 July and begin negotiations that led to the end of hostilities on the Italian-Austrian front with the Armistice of Cormons, signed on 12 August.
The 25 July truce froze troop movements and, by that date, the entire remaining territory of the former Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was liberated from Austrian rule, with the exclusion of only the fortresses of the Quadrilatero: Verona, Legnago, Mantua and Peschiera del Garda, as well as Palmanova and Venice, the latter city characterized by strong unitarian symbolism and the memory of its uprising during the Revolutions of 1848.
Austria, defeated by Prussia (armistice of Nikolsburg), ceded by the Peace of Prague of 23 August 1866, the remaining territories of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia to France, on the understanding that Napoleon III would hand them over to Victor Emmanuel II after organizing a consultation, which formally confirmed the will of the people to the liberation of Veneto from Austrian rule.
The terms of the treaty, as far as the plebiscite was concerned, did not meet with the favor of the king and the Italian government:
The plebiscite was also opposed by the Venetian Central Committee, which in this regard cited the request of the Venetians in 1848 in favor of a merger with Piedmont of their provinces by staying under the Savoy dynasty, a request renewed when the war ended in 1859.
The Treaty of Vienna of 3 October 1866, concluded between Austria and Italy, laid down the conditions of the surrender and stated in its preamble that the Emperor of Austria had ceded the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia to the Emperor of the French, who, in turn, had declared himself ready to recognize the reunion of the “Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia to the states of His Majesty the King of Italy, subject to the consent of the duly consulted populations.” Article 14 of the treaty allowed the inhabitants of the region, who so desired, to move with their property to the states that remained under the rule of the Austrian Empire, thus retaining their status as Austrian subjects. The evacuation of the territory ceded by Austria, detailed in Article 5, would begin immediately after the signing of the peace, the date of which would coincide with the day of the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty of Vienna, as stated in the first article of the treaty.
On the part of the Italian government was presented to Victor Emmanuel II the Report of the President of the Council and the Minister of Grace and Justice and Cults to H.M. the King concerning the plebiscite of the Venetian Provinces: the report began with a preamble stating that the Kingdom of Italy “grew and enlarged with the spontaneous consent of the peoples anxious to give the national idea a form, which would ensure its unfolding, and be to Europe a guaranty of order and civilization”; the events of 1848 and the related manifestations of intentions of union with the Kingdom were then recalled, which were followed by “seventeen years of resistance and suffering.” In response to the report the sovereign issued Royal Decree No. 3236 on Oct. 7 to convene the plebiscite, unbeknownst to the French, published in the Official Gazette only on Oct. 19.
In those days the official handing over of fortresses and cities by the French to local authorities had begun, followed by the entry of Italian troops: Borgoforte on 8 October, Peschiera del Garda on 9 October, Mantua and Legnago on 11 October, Palmanova on the 12th and Verona on the 15th, while Venice was handed over last on 19 October.
On 17 October the decree convening the plebiscite was issued and its procedures were announced: voting would take place on 21 and 22 October, while ballot counting would take place from the 23rd to the 26th; finally, on the 27th, the court of appeals in Venice, meeting in public session, would add up the data and communicate the results to the Ministry of Justice in Florence (at that time the capital of Italy), and a deputation of notables would leave to take the results to Victor Emmanuel II. At the same time, it was indicated that Venice, Padua, Mantua, Verona, Udine and Treviso would be the seat of military intendencies.
News of the convocation decree, circulated in the press on Oct. 17, provoked the reaction of French plenipotentiary general Edmond Le Bœuf, who protested that “in the face of royal determinations, his handing over of Veneto to three notables so that they might organize a plebiscite becomes derisory [... ] and on the other hand, the Royal Decree being a violation of the treaty, he protested that he was reporting it to his government, and that without further order from the Emperor he would not remit Veneto." Genova Thaon di Revel succeeded in convincing him that these were only preparatory instructions given to the municipalities, causing him to withdraw his protest, but he admitted that ‘he was right after all.’
The Austrian garrison had begun its abandonment of the city of Venice as early as the night of 18 October, with the first units embarking on Lloyd Triestino shipping vessels and the rest of the troops gathered, awaiting embarkation, on the Lido.
On the morning of 19 October General Le Bœuf, who was staying at the Europa Hotel, brought together the Austrian military commissar General Karl Möring, Italian General Thaon di Revel, the municipality of Venice, the commission in charge of receiving Veneto, the consul general of France M. de Surville and M. Vicary to carry out the procedures for the handover of power.
The formalities took place in four stages:
The redelivery of Veneto was presented by Le Bœuf with the following statement:
The latter ceremony was originally scheduled to take place in the hall of the Great Council of the Doge's Palace, but - according to Dubarry - Le Bœuf thought it more appropriate to concentrate all the various handovers in a single event and place, in order not to leave long intervals of time between one transfer of power and another.
Immediately after the signing, Michiel had the tricolor raised on the flagpoles of St. Mark's Square, while volleys of artillery rang out and rumbled; later, according to the agreements made, he asked Thaon di Revel to let the Italian troops enter the city. The Italian general, who went to the railway station together with the aldermen, thus welcomed his troops, who paraded through the city divided into three columns, each preceded by a civic band: the first went along the Cannaregio street, the second along the Tolentini street, and the third sailed along the Grand Canal in barges. After crossing the city all in celebration and paved with tricolors, at 3 p.m. the three processions converged on St. Mark's Square in a parade that went on for another two hours.
On the same day, the Oct. 7 decree for the plebiscite was published in the Official Gazette.
According to some sources, Veneto was instead ceded directly from Austria to the Kingdom of Italy on 19 October: the newspaper Gazzetta di Venezia reported in very few lines that: “This morning in a room of the Europa Hotel the cession of Veneto was made.”
On 20 October royal commissioner Giuseppe Pasolini, who had already been appointed since 13 October, arrived in Venice.
Voting for the plebiscite took place on 21 and 22 October 1866; in Venice, the election offices remained open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both days.
The plebiscite was held under universal male suffrage. Voting instructions, established by the decree of 7 January, were disseminated to the population through posters, as in the case of the city of Mantua:
It was therefore possible to vote by handing in any paper containing the text of the question, adding either Yes or No.
Those who were eligible to vote as males over the age of 21 constituted about 28 percent of the resident population; this approximate figure is obtained by considering those over the age of 21 as equal to 55 percent of the inhabitants and excluding the female population (50 percent), according to data taken from the 1871 census. According to the Austrian census of 1857, compared to the total population, men over 21 years of age were 27% in the Venetian provinces (624 728 out of 2 306 875) and 28% in the five districts of Mantua that remained in the empire after 1859 (40 461 out of 146 867).
The question concerned the accession of the Venetian provinces (which at the time included the provinces of today's central-western Friuli) and Mantua to the Kingdom of Italy.
Voter turnout was very high, exceeding 85 percent of those eligible to vote. In the Padua district alone 29 894 voters voted, or about 98 percent of those eligible.
In the municipality of Venice, there were 30,601 eligible voters, but 4,000 more people voted (34,004 yes, 7 no, and 115 null), as military personnel and exiles who had returned were also allowed to vote.
The participation of the Slovenian-speaking Friulian minority of the so-called Benecija or Friulian Slavia (located in today's Udine province) in the 1866 plebiscite, was particularly significant. The Austrian Empire, in fact, after the Treaty of Campo Formio had annulled the legal, linguistic and fiscal autonomy once granted by the Serenissima to the Slovenian community, which also for this reason adhered to the Risorgimento ideas, which increasingly expanded after the brief interlude of 1848. The anti-Austrian vote of the Slovenes was unanimous: out of 3,688 voters there was only one ballot against the Kingdom of Italy. The passage to the Kingdom of Italy brought many economic, social and cultural changes for that territory, but it also initiated a policy of Italianization of the Natisone and Torre Valleys, which in the decades following the plebiscite fueled a progressive feeling of disappointment in the hopes of recognition of Slovenian identity.
In various cities in the Kingdom of Italy there were ballots for Venetian emigrants and exiles, as Article 10 of the decree stated that “all Italians from the liberated provinces who were, either for reasons of public service or for any other reason in any part of the Kingdom” could vote; in Turin, for example, there were 757 voters, all for Yes.
In Florence, the vote became a public demonstration:
Although not required (as suffrage was only for men at the time), women in Venice, Padua, Dolo, Mirano and Rovigo also wanted to cast their votes. Even in Mantua, women, although not allowed to vote, wanted to bring their support: about 2,000 votes were collected in separate ballot boxes.
Venetian women sent a message to the king:
In the press of the time, the patriotic nature of this participation was emphasized, neglecting the hints of protest (bitterness and humiliation) and women's claim to the right to vote.
On 27 October, in Venice, in the Scrutiny Room of the Doge's Palace, the counting of votes took place. After a brief speech by Sebastiano Tecchio, president of the Court of Appeals, the court councillors announced the results for the nine provinces.
The announcement of the results was first made in the Scrutiny Hall and was then repeated from the balcony of the Doge's Palace.
Due to the failure to count votes from some municipalities in the Rovigo district (5,339 votes for “yes,” no "no" votes, and one null ballot) and 149 votes from emigrants (all positive), the Court of Appeals was forced to correct the results at its session on 31 October 1866:
Different versions of the results can be found published:
The unanimous adherence to the plebiscite was thus explained in an article in La Civiltà Cattolica, published in Rome, which at that time was engaged in the Roman question in defense of temporal power:
Spirito Folletto on 8 November 1866 published a series of cartoons depicting examples of plebiscite voters:
On 22 April 1859, due to the advance of the Piedmontese in the Milanese area, the Austrians decided to transfer to Vienna the iron crown, an ancient and precious symbol used since the Middle Ages for the coronation of the kings of Italy, which was kept at the Treasury of the Cathedral of Monza.
The restitution of the crown to Italy was the subject of specific notes attached to the peace agreement, and was officially handed over on 12 October 1866 by Austrian General Alexander von Mensdorff to the Italian representative General Menabrea; the latter, after the treaty was signed, returned from Vienna carrying the crown to Turin, and during the trip stopped in Venice and showed it to Royal Military Commissioner Thaon di Revel.
A plaque placed in Calle Larga dell'Ascensione indicates 25 October 1866 as the date of the presence in Venice of the crown returned to Italy.
At midnight on 2 November the Venetian delegation left Venice on a special train, which, after a stop of several hours in Milan (where the Venetian representatives were festively welcomed by the Milanese municipal administration) arrived at Turin station the next day, Saturday 3 November at 2 p.m., greeted by festive cannon shots and received by the Turin city council and conducted through a sumptuous procession to the Europa Hotel, from whose balcony Commander Tecchio delivered an address to the crowd below.
On Sunday 4 November 1866, in the Throne Room of Turin's Royal Palace, a Venetian delegation delivered the results of the plebiscite to King Victor Emmanuel II; the delegation was composed as follows:
Sebastiano Tecchio, president of the Court of Appeals of Venice, was also present.
Giambattista Giustinian delivered the official speech:
To which the king replied with these words:
At the end of the speeches, the Iron Crown of Theodelinda, returned by Austria, was presented and handed to the king. Despite its high symbolic value, Victor Emmanuel II “with indifference” had the crown placed on the throne. The crown was returned to Monza Cathedral on 6 December the same year.
On the same day Royal Decree No. 3300 of annexation was issued, by which “the provinces of Venice and those of Mantua are an integral part of the Kingdom of Italy.” The decree was converted into law on 18 July 1867 (approved by the House on 16 May 1867, with 207 votes for and four against; approved by the Senate on 25 May 1867, with 83 votes for and one against).
On 7 November 1866, with the entry of Victor Emmanuel II into the city of Venice, the political phase of the Third Italian War of Independence also ended.
Victor Emmanuel II arrived by royal train at Venezia Santa Lucia railway station at around 11:00 a.m., preceded by blank cannon shots fired from Fort Marghera. The city was festively decorated, with tricolored cockades and posters of greetings (among which some, printed by a certain Simonetti, bore the anagram “Victor Emmanuel - O King, do you love Veneto? Look! Veneto is yours!!!"). The king, accompanied by his sons Umberto and Amedeo, was welcomed by the city authorities and was taken to the royal boat, led by 18 rowers in costume, which traveled all along the Grand Canal escorted by a grand procession of gondolas, greeted by a large audience. Upon arriving at the Doge's Palace, the notary Bisacco officially delivered to the king the 1848 deed by which the Republic of St. Mark had already sworn allegiance to the Savoy. The festivities continued uninterruptedly for six days, with gala performances at the Teatro La Fenice, fireworks, masquerade balls, gas illuminations and serenades. The event was followed and described by some 1,200 journalists and correspondents who came to Venice from all over the world.
There still remained under the Austrian Empire the territories that had never been included in the now defunct Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, namely Trentino, the city of Trieste and areas of the Dalmatian coast with significant Italian presence; this would reinvigorate irredentist sentiments and provide the main motive for supporters of Italy's entry into the war against Austria during World War I (also known as the Fourth Italian War of Independence).
By decree of 20 February 1868 Victor Emmanuel II established the Order of the Crown of Italy with specific reference to the annexation of Veneto:
The decorations for all ranks of the order contained an image of the Iron Crown; the decoration for the highest rank (Knight of the Grand Cross or Grand Cordon) bore the inscription VICT. EMMAN. II REX ITALIAE - MDCCCLXVI (Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy - 1866).
In 1859, after the Second War of Independence, the province of Mantua, as part of the Austrian Empire, had been deprived of the districts west of the Mincio River, which passed to the then Kingdom of Sardinia and were divided between the provinces of Brescia and Cremona.
With the annexation of the province of Mantua to the Kingdom of Italy, a request was made to restore the historical boundaries; reunification took place in February 1868.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, some historians, mostly related to the Veneto regionalist movement, began to challenge the validity of the plebiscite by imputing strong political pressure, a series of alleged frauds, and improper conduct of the voting to the Savoys, adding that nineteenth-century Venetian society was predominantly rural with a still high illiteracy rate and large strata of the population were ready to accept the directions of the “upper classes.”
Other historians and constitutionalists reject this anti-Risorgimento reconstruction, pointing out on the one hand that the plebiscite was only a validation of the diplomatic activity following the Peace of Prague, and on the other hand pointing out the great festive atmosphere that accompanied the vote and lasted until the triumphal entry of Victor Emmanuel II into Venice on 7 November 1866, therefore ruling out altogether that the annexation was not desired by the people of Veneto and Mantua.
On the night of 8-9 May 1997 a group of people calling themselves the “Veneta Serenissima Armata” (better known as the Serenissimi) militarily occupied the bell tower of St. Mark's in Venice: these activists, who were later arrested and convicted, claimed to have done historical research and discovered elements that, in their opinion, would have invalidated, among other things, the plebiscite ratifying the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, characterized, again according to them, by alleged fraud and violations of international agreements signed during the Armistice of Cormons and the Treaty of Vienna.
In 2012, the Veneto Regional Council passed a resolution stating that “the accession of Veneto to the Italian Kingdom with the referendum of 21 and 22 October 1866 matured with an instrument of direct consultation, characterized, in truth, by a series of fraudulent actions implemented by the Kingdom of Italy.”
In September 2016, the Veneto Region sent to ninety libraries in Veneto a copy of the book “1866 la grande truffa: il plebiscito di annessione del Veneto all'Italia” by Ettore Beggiato, which supports the thesis of fraud, reinvigorating the debate among historians.
On 24 April 2017 Regional President Luca Zaia called an advisory referendum to ask resident citizens the question, “Do you want the Veneto region to be granted additional forms and conditions of autonomy?”, and then demand similar governing powers from neighboring special-status regions. The date of the vote, chosen jointly with Lombardy where a similar consultation was held, was symbolically on 22 October 2017, precisely on the 151st anniversary of the 21-22 October 1866 vote, also to “give an answer” to the historic plebiscite.
In December 2010, Roberto Calderoli, then minister for Regulatory Simplification in the Fourth Berlusconi government, announced the approval of the so-called “law-killing decree.” The decree was intended to eliminate from the Italian legal system thousands of laws considered unnecessary or obsolete: however, among the repealed regulations was also Royal Decree No. 3300 of 4 November 1866, as well as its conversion law No. 3841 of July 1867, which had decreed the annexation of the Veneto region to the Kingdom of Italy.
This was in fact a merely formal repeal, since the Republican Constitution on the one hand enshrined the indivisibility of Italy and on the other included Veneto among the Italian regions. Although some journalistic sources report an alleged later corrective decree, Royal Decree No. 3300 of 1866 remained formally repealed.