The Kingdom of Two Sicilies, in the course of 1848-1849, had been able to suppress the revolution and the attempt of
Sicilian secession with their own forces, hired Swiss guards included. The war declared on
Austria in April 1848, under pressure of public sentiment, had been an event
on paper only.
In 1849 King Ferdinand II. was 39 years old; he had begun as a reformer; the early death of his wife (1836), the
frequency of political unrest, the extent and range of political expectations on the side of various groups that made up
public opinion, had caused him to pursue a cautious, yet authoritarian policy aiming at the prevention of the
occurrence of yet another rebellion.
Over half of the delegates elected to parliament in the liberal atmosphere of 1848 were arrested or fled the country.
The administration, in their treatment of political prisoners, in their observation of 'suspicious elements', violated the
rights of the individual guaranteed by the constitution. Conditions were so bad that they caused international attention;
in 1856
Britain and
France demanded the
release of the political prisoners. When this was rejected, both countries broke off diplomatic relations.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies pursued an economic policy of protectionism; the country's economy was mainly
based on agriculture, the cities, especially Naples - with over 400,000 inhabitants Italy's largest -
'a center of
consumption rather than of production' (Santore p.163).
Administratively, Naples and Sicily remained separate units; in 1858 the Neapolitan Postal Service issued her first
postage stamps; that of Sicily followed in 1859.
Until 1849, the political movement among the bourgeoisie, at times revolutionary, had been Neapolitan respectively
Sicilian rather than Italian in its tendency; Sicily in 1848-1849 had striven for a higher degree of independence from
Naples rather than for a unified Italy.
As public sentiment for Italian unification was rather low in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the country did not
feature as an object of acquisition in the earlier plans of
Piemont-Sardinia's prime minister Cavour. Only when
Austria was
defeated in 1859 and the unification of Northern Italy (except
Redshirts, launch his invasion of Sicily, with the connivance of Cavour
(
Second War of Italian Independence. Once in Sicily,
many rallied to his colours; after a successful campaign, he crossed over to the mainland. King Francis II.
(since 1859) withdrew to the fortified port of Gaeta, where he surrendered and abdicated in February 1861.
At Teano, Garibaldi met King Victor Emmanuel, transferring to him the conquered kingdom
(
Handshake of Teano); the Two Sicilies were annexed
into the
Kingdom of Italy. What used to be the Kingdom of
Two Sicilies became Italy's
Mezzogiorno.
