Anti-French uprisings in Italy were popular revolts between 1796 and 1814 against occupying French forces, local Jacobins, pro-French figures, and satellite states set up by France after invading Italy.
The uprisings were spontaneous and isolated from one another, arising in various places, without one single leader to coordinate them or to give them a unified military strategy. They also lacked adequate weapons. The most successful such revolt was by the Army of the Holy Faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of Naples, which managed to re-establish the old regime on a more lasting basis.
Context
1796-1799 is known in Italy as the "Jacobin thirty years", as it saw the peninsular invaded by Revolutionary France's Army of Italy under Napoleon Bonaparte. On 10 April 1796 French troops occupied the Duchies of Milan and Mantua, both Austrian territory, then the Duchy of Modena and Reggio and finally the northern parts of the Papal States (the papal legations of Ferrara, Bologna and Romagna). The following year they brought down the republics of Venice (12 May 1797) and Genoa (14 June 1797). They occupied Rome on 10 February 1798, deposing the Pope as temporal ruler and replacing him with the Roman Republic.
This left the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Principality of Benevento and the Kingdom of Sicily as the only formally independent states in the whole of Italy. Napoleon overturned the political structure of the peninsula: the old monarchies were mostly deposed and replaced by the so-called Sister Republics, entities modelled on the institutions of the Revolutionary France; some territories were annexed directly to France.
Since 1789 French propaganda and other factors had led to a pro-Revolutionary party arising in Italy, allowing Jacobinism to find more fertile soil in Italy than in any other area of Europe besides France. Between 1791 and 1793 various pro-Revolutionary revolts and demonstrations occurred, such as that at Dronero in Piedmont, at Orsogna in Abruzzo and at Rionero in Basilicata. The main central bodies organising Italian Jacobinism were the masonic lodges in Naples and Turin, linked to that in Marseille, which formed societies dedicated to subversive activity. Persecuted by the police, many Italian Jacobins moved to France, gathering around Filippo BuonarrotiFuret and Richet 1965, p. 432
Even so, French opinion of Italian Jacobinism varied between scepticism and mistrust. In July 1796 Charles-François Delacroix asked diplomats in Italy for their opinion on the matter - consul Pascal-Thomas Fourcade replied "Italians generally belong to the human species only in the form which distinguishes it and the vices which dishonour it". The French Directory also viewed the core of Jacobins linked to François-Noël Babeuf and the neo-Terrorists with suspicion and many like Lazare Carnot believed that a unified Italian republic could be a rival to France.Furet and Richet 1965, p. 417 Driven by events and by the enthusiasm sparked by the Army of Italy's arrival, Italian Jacobinism grew significantly and spread throughout the peninsula. Its supporters actively participated in the new republics' political and administrative life, leading them also to be known as "Jacobin Republics".
Following the stabilising policy decided upon on 15 December 1792 by the French Convention, the peoples "liberated" by revolutionary troops had to contribute to funding those troops' upkeep by raising taxes and duties, applying Cato the Censor's ancient Roman principle of bellum seipsum alet ("war feeds itself") from the Second Punic War.V. Ilari, P. Crociani e C. Paoletti, Storia Militare del Regno Italico, USSME, Roma, 2004, p. 41 This provoked discontent in Italy at paying for the forces occupying them. The new republics also seized the goods of ecclesiastical mortmain and many church properties were converted to state property.Carla Nardi, Napoleone e Roma: dalla consulta romana al ritorno di Pio VII (1811-1814), Gangemi, 2005, p.172
1796-1798 Lombardy 1796
As of 1796 Lombardy proper was part of the Duchy of Milan and did not include the present-day provinces of Bergamo and Brescia and the city of Crema (all then belonging to the Republic of Venice), nor the Valtellina (dominated by the Protestant Swiss canton of Grisons) and the Lomellina and the Oltrepò (both then parts of the Kingdom of Sardinia). Bonaparte entered Milan on 15 May 1796. Once they had taken and garrisoned the Milan stronghold, the French told the city's population what kinds of supplies they needed - they required them to collect 80,000 food rations (though there were 10,000 troops on the ground).Sanguinetti 1996, p. 55. They then began to plunder the city's economic and financial resources, demanding a very large war contribution of 25 million Milanese lire (equivalent to six years of the tribute they had paid to Austria).Sanguinetti 1996, p. 58.
They also seized the state coffers, funds held by the city council, charities and religious institutionsSanguinetti 1996, p. 56. and even the pledges deposited in the Monte di Pietà. This elimination of assets ruined the Monte, which had to stay closed until 1804Sanguinetti, p. 57. They also looted art treasures, compiling a list of works they wanted - from the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana they took the cartoon for the School of Athens by Raphael, one drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, paintings by Bernardino Luini, Rubens, Giorgione and Mattia Preti and very precious manuscripts, whilst from the Santa Maria delle Grazie they seized Titian's The Crowning with Thorns and Gaudenzio Ferrari's Saint Paul.
While in Milan the citizens' anger was soon quelled, rebellion quickly spread to the neighbouring towns and the surrounding countryside - on 23 May revolt broke out in Pavia (the epicentre of rebellion in the region), Como, Varese and neighbouring towns rose up. All the provinces of Lombardy except Cremona rebelled against their French occupiers.Sanguinetti 1996, p. 111. On 24-25 May unrest continued in the countryside around Pavia and spread to that around Lodi.
In Binasco the peasants occupied the town and ejected the French garrison.Sanguinetti 1996, p. 122. Binasco was also the town most affected by repression. On 24-25 May general Jean Lannes, commander of a mounted dragoon squadron of around 160 men and three companies of grenadiers (totalling around 420 men), attacked and burned rural farms, seized all their animals, livestock and horse and mule fodder, set fire to about a third of the towns, sacked church goods, raped women and murdered around a hundred people, mainly men, who had opposed the French invasion with weapons. Lannes' only casualty was one of his dragoons killed.Sanguinetti 1996, p. 129-132 After the fall of the main rebel stronghold, the French demolished the walls of Pavia and on 25-26 May sacked and occupied the town.Sanguinetti 1996, p. 144 and following.
In the late 18th century the Valtellina was ruled by Protestant Grisons, under which the Salis family rose to power Since 1794 protest movements had been raising community grievances against patrician families had been spreading, with cries of "Long live liberty and long live the French".G.B. Crollalanza (1867), p. 552, Bonaparte's arrival in Italy led a Jacobin and Republican circle to form in Sondrio, with links with the one in Brescia. It spread to the point that Grisons sent 9,000 armed men into the valley, but the valley's inhabitants gave an unarmed response. The Council of the Valley decided to ask Bonaparte for protection and to arbitrate the dispute with Grisons. Bonaparte's first suggestion was that the Grisons gave the valley a grant with which it could redeem itself and become a full member as a "fourth league" added to the Three Leagues, but disagreements from some in Grisons scuppered this plan.
1797 In March that year the Republics of Bergamo and Brescia were set up. After pulling down the symbols of Venetian rule (which had lasted in Bergamo since 1428), the revolutionaries began a 'war' against any remains of that past, destroying symbols, columns and statues. Several villages openly rebelled, as did the towns of Lonato and Castenedolo to the south of Brescia, the whole Val Trompia to its north, and the 34 towns of the Riviera di Salò. Troops raised from among native Jacobins in Brescia and Bergamo attacked the Golfo but were repelled and captured, neccesitating French intervention. On 20 May Salò was forced to surrender and the French soon declared that the Riviera was dissolved.
In June revolts occurred in Brianza (Seregno, Busto Arsizio).Paolo Martinucci, Premesse storiche e culturali dell'insorgenza nel bergamasco e nel bresciano
On 4 July 1797 local Jacobins attempted a coup by raising a tree of liberty in Chiavenna and organising a provisional government. The local inhabitants immediately rioted, dismissed the authorities imposed by Grisons, supported the local representatives (as did the local clergyG.B. Crollalanza (1867), p.553-573), tore down the statue of the governor Pietro Salis, and chiselled off the coats of arms of patrician families' coats of arms and their Grisons rulers. Finally, on 10 October 1797, the Valtellina was removed from Grisons and added to the Cisalpine Republic by a decree from Bonaparte. There was opposition to that annexation in the val San Giacomo and Villa di Chiavenna, both located on the border with Grisons and with strong commercial ties to that region.
1798 In 1798 widespread anti-French revolt again swept the Valtellina. Riots and disorder broke out in Teglio and Grosio, whilst in Cepina rebels arrested and shot the Brescian nobleman and Jacobin Galeano Lechi. The following year the lower Valle rebelled, as did Teglio again. At Delebio the pro-Jacobin priest don Andrea Parravicini was shot by the rebels.Oscar Sanguinetti, 'Le insorgenze popolari contro-rivoluzionarie in Lombardia nel periodo napoleonico' (PDF), in Quaderni padani, VI, n. 29, May-June 2000, pp. 43-49.
Between 1797 and 1798 revolts also broke out in the area around Mantua, along with a widespread one in the Ticino Canton, part of the Helvetic Republic, which had replaced the Swiss Confederation.
Veneto
After Lombardy had been conquered in spring 1796 the Republic of Venice was Bonaparte's next aim on his advance into Austria.Agnoli, p. 81. The events took place between 1796 and 1797, culminating in the week of 17-25 April 1797. On 30 May 1796 the French defeated the Austrians at Borghetto and crossed the Mincio, entered Veronese territory. When they reached Verona the aggressors hunted down Venetian troops out of the forts before the city and laid siege to it (1 June). The Republic declared neutrality but this was ignored. Relations between the Veronese population and the French troops were difficult from the beginning, due to the French troops' behaviour, which was more like occupiers than guests.
The advance continued during July and August. On 8 September Bonaparte won the Battle of Bassano. By the end of 1796, the French occupied the whole western part of the Veneto. The Austrian defensive line began north of Vicenza and extended as far as Cadore and Friuli. Although the French Directory had declared itself in favour of formally respecting Venice's neutrality, Bonaparte had already decided to end it.
There were encounters between the French and Austrians in the early months of 1797. Alarmed by the Republic's submissive behaviour (it had allowed French forces to march across its lands), the local inhabitants armed themselves and organised a people's army. Of all the revolts in Italy, the one in Verona passed down into history for its size and its ill consequences for the Republic.